Cipher
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: 10 million people in L.A. Three government enforcement agencies. One coded message. Zero answers. Complete story.
1. Chapter 1

Cipher

By OughtaKnowBetter

* * *

Special Agent Don Eppes could only imagine what his brother, Professor Charles Eppes, was actually looking at.

The scene was one reeking of recent chaos. That it was a murder, no one had any doubt. The body hadn't yet been taken away, and the blood still sluggishly oozing from the single bullet wound in the back of the neck—execution style, Don noted grimly—was a dead giveaway. Pun intended. Don grimaced; he had been told that the body was already out of the way. If he'd known that the statement was a gross exaggeration, he would have insisted that Charlie wait in the Suburban until it was a little safer for civilian consultants to be present. A little cleaner, actually.

The office where the body resided was not one that included the trappings of wealth. Far from being a plush carpet, the floor was faded linoleum, the edges curling up and crumbling and in extreme need of replacement. Sunlight was being kept from entering through the windows not by the blinds that covered them but by the heavy accumulation of dust and grime that coated the slats and put a far thicker layer of dirt on those slats than was ever intended by the original manufacturer. And there was no way that any of the three folding chairs in the office could ever be described as comfortable. They were lucky to remain upright. Their fourth companion, shoved into the corner with an amputated leg, had not.

The condition of the chairs was unimportant to the corpse. He would never be using them again.

Don himself peered more closely at the body. There were several things that disturbed him, beyond the obvious bullet wounds. The man didn't look as though he belonged here. The beard was scruffy, but it was newly grown. The clothes seemed a little too careful with the grime. There was always a difference between a hole in the jeans that arrived there by ripping versus one that was honestly earned through repeated wearings and washings until the fabric shredded from sheer exhaustion.

And the hands. Those blared out _fake_. Anyone in a place like this had done plenty of hard labor, and that would show. It should show in the tattooed-in dirt under the fingernails that would never come clean even with multiple scrubbings. These facial features were even and regular—hell, Don was even willing to bet that there was expensive dental work in this man's past.

He looked around the rest of the office and sighed. There would be plenty of work here, plenty to keep him and his team busy for hours if not days. There were reams of papers to be gone through and, given the trashed look of the office, it was likely that there wouldn't be one clue left that would actually point them in the right direction. And there were slivers of glass shattered all over the place. The only really useful papers were smoldering in the trash can, now just so much ash. As good as the FBI Forensics Unit was, Don really doubted that even they could pull anything out of that mess.

"Forensics gonna get here anytime soon?" Colby griped. He leaned over to stare fixedly at a spot on the desk and snapped another still photo. "I think this is a spot of blood, and I think it's fresh."

"The victim's?"

"Maybe. I'm thinking it's too far away for that. Maybe the killer's?"

Don agreed with him. The dark smudge that Colby had found was on the other side of the desk from the victim, just the right place for someone to have been sitting when the slivers of glass were flung in all directions. Speaking of which… "Charlie?"

"I'm going to need the location of each glass fragment," his brother announced distractedly, still staring at the silicon crystals.

Don blinked. Charlie hadn't flinched when Don had brought him in, his eyes only on the glass pieces that Don had asked him to look at. At the moment Don wasn't even certain that Charlie had noticed that there _was_ a corpse. It was just something more for the glass pieces to be on, around, and over.

"Charlie?"

"It shattered, and just recently." Charlie picked his way over to the desk, even stepping over the corpse's leg, blind to everything else. "This black burn spot on the desk is a dead giveaway. The glass object shattered, most likely from heat." He looked up at his brother. "Once I know the shape and composition of the fragments, I can determine the size and shape of the vessel as well as what was most likely the cause of its breakage. There may have been some sort of liquid inside that became unstable in response to heat, though the energy source must have been fairly intense in order to cause this sort of shattering."

Still oblivious to the body on the floor. Don thanked his lucky stars for small favors, and all of that. 'Hyper-focused' was what they called it these days, as if concentration were a disease. Hated to say it, but once his brother realized what it was that he was stepping over… Well, there was a reason that math professors stayed locked in ivory towers.

Charlie had retrieved a largish piece of previously molten glass. Don rescued it hurriedly. "Charlie, we have to wait for Forensics to clear the room. Then you can pick up the pieces. We can't have your fingerprints on it."

"Oh." Charlie looked around, finally realizing what else was in the room. He paled.

_Damn. Just what I didn't want to happen. Why didn't you wait in the car, like I told you, buddy, until we cleared the scene?_

"That's…" There wasn't any place to sit down.

"Yeah." Don took his brother's arm. "Why don't you go back to the car, see if any of those equations of yours will fit what's going on here?"

"I think that's a good idea," Charlie said thickly, stumbling to the door. Don watched him a moment to make sure that his kid brother—_dammit, gotta stop thinking of him like that. He's a grown man with a higher security clearance than mine_—got out into the fresh air and was able to push away the nausea with a deep breath.

Don looked the body over again, wondering just when Don himself had gotten so blasé at the sight of 'violent'. _Takes a lot a turn my stomach these days_, he thought, cringing. _Not that it can't be done_.

"Who are you?" he muttered out loud.

Megan, though, heard him. "John Doe, for the moment. Whoever did this took his wallet and all of his ID. After the ME pronounces, I'll get some prints and run them." She too looked at the corpse. "Who do you think did this?"

Don shook his head. "Good question. The easy answer is 'drugs'."

"But you don't think so."

Don frowned. "I think someone may want us to think 'drugs' and dismiss it. Look at the guy, Megan. What do you see?"

"I see a man with a bullet through the back of his head." Megan sounded just as detached as Don felt. "I see someone who's been on the streets, someone who…" she trailed off. "Not on the streets. If he were, he'd look a lot scruffier." Now Megan too frowned. "Don, this is a set up."

"Let's see if we can't hustle the ME along so that we can get those prints run. See to it, will you, Megan?"

* * *

Charlie looked better once Don rejoined him in the Suburban. As Don had hoped, Charlie had already plugged his laptop into the car battery and was pouring data into the little black box.

Don deliberately refrained from mentioning the corpse. "You got something I can use?"

"Not yet." Charlie sounded grim. He looked up. "I'll need all the fragments you can find in order to reconstruct that glass object."

"You got it. Forensics said that they'll have the place turned in a couple of hours. You want to look at 'em at Headquarters? I can sign 'em out of Evidence if your office would be better."

"Headquarters will be fine." The dark head remained poised over the laptop.

Something wasn't right. Yes, Charlie would dive in head first into any problem that Don cared to throw his way, but there was an undertone of something else. And Charlie was pretty focused on his computer, even more than usual. "Charlie?"

Tapping.

"Charlie?" A little more insistently this time.

The voice penetrated. Charlie looked up. "Don, I know that man. I think."

"Who, the dead guy?" Once the words were out of his mouth, Don winced. Charlie, demonstrably, didn't have Don's detachment when it came to the seamier side of life.

Charlie flinched. _Yup, struck a nerve_. "Yes, the dead guy," he repeated, trying to match Don's aplomb and failing. He put his head back down to the laptop.

Don gave him just enough time to make certain that Charlie wasn't going to come up for air on his own. "Who was he?" he prodded gently.

"Not sure."

"Charlie?" _Gotta push here, buddy._ _Need the name. Maybe an initial, then purchase a vowel_.

"Don…"

_Let's get this over with. It'll hurt less_. "You knew him?" Past tense.

Charlie apparently came to the same conclusion about 'less hurt' independently. "Yes. I recognize him. But I can't remember from where."

"Student, maybe?"

"Maybe." Charlie sounded doubtful. "Probably not. He's older, and I tend to remember the older students in my classes. They're usually the ones with their heads screwed on straight, understand that it takes work to do well. They tend to ask the toughest questions that show the most insight into a theory." He strove for a grin. It didn't quite come off. "They tend not to whine about grades."

That stumped Don. "Charlie, you've met a lot of people. No clue as to who it might be? Someone in academia, maybe?"

"No." Charlie bent his head over his laptop. "It'll come to me."

"Sooner rather than later would be better, buddy."

* * *

That final 'no' came a little too quickly, Don reflected, heading back toward FBI headquarters after dropping Charlie off at CalSci. Charlie knew something, Don was certain of it. He never could keep a secret, not from Don. Don could always wangle it out of him. Interrogation techniques were a joke around Charlie. One twist, and the answer would come spilling out. Usually trying to get Charlie to shut up was the problem.

Which made this more puzzling. What could possibly be so important that Charlie wouldn't talk?

_Damn_. This would eat away at Don until dinner time. Then, Don knew, the agent would saunter home in time for some of his father's good cooking and a little surreptitious questioning of a certain math professor. Don fully expected that the answer would be his by eight o'clock tonight. In the meantime, Don intended to continue looking into the homicide. It was supposed to look like a small time murder, just two old 'friends' coming to blows and the winner walking off with the purse, but the very fact that Charlie was spooked had just turned up the heat.

Don walked into Headquarters, heading straight for his office, intending to make a few pertinent phone calls. He caught Megan on the way. "Anything on those prints?"

"Not a thing," she called back. "Drawing a blank there; they're not in any database across the country. But the Area Director wants to see you and me as soon as you got in."

_Uh-oh_. Pit of the stomach time. Sometimes it was a good thing to be called up to talk to the boss. Notice of a commendation could be a reason, although that tended to happen once in a blue moon. Usually it was because someone complained, or threatened a lawsuit that had a reasonable chance of being a nuisance or worse. Whatever it was, Don really preferred that meetings with Area Director D'Angelo were instigated by Don himself.

Wouldn't get better by dawdling. Don grabbed his jacket, just in case a formal resignation was called for, and escorted Megan up.

Naw. Couldn't be a termination. Not if the Area Director was calling for both of them. D'Angelo had class; he'd have them come up one at a time and fire them separately, then allow them to commiserate on the way down to clean out their desks. Don started to feel a little better. Just a little. Not much.

There was a guest in Area Director D'Angelo's office, and Don was suddenly very glad that he'd stopped to pick up his suit coat. Both D'Angelo and the guest were formally attired, which suggested that the guest was visiting talent from an upper level deparment. D'Angelo looked up as the pair approached, Megan knocking politely on the edge of the door. "Come in. Mr. Tanner, this is Special Agent Megan Reeves and Special Agent Don Eppes."

"Pleasure." Tanner didn't offer his hand, nor did he look particularly pleased to meet them.

Don took a moment to size the man up, pulling back the hand that he had started to put out. There was nothing special about D'Angelo's guest, just an ordinary man, and Don came to the rapid conclusion that Tanner liked it that way. Average height, light brown hair that could be described as dark blonde in the right light, eyes that seemed to alternately be hazel, brown, or green depending on which glimpse you paid attention to. The body was well-honed, though; Tanner spent time in the gym working out. Don started to get that hinky feeling about the man, and spared a glance for the hand. Yup, there it was: that little shiny dark area on the trigger finger that came from hours and days and weeks spent on the firing range, honing target skills until you could hit a gnat up side the head and leave the antennae wiggling. _And _there was that sense that the man knew everything that was going around him, like he had a second sense for that sort of thing…

All of which left Don wondering what a spook was doing in D'Angelo's office. Spook for who? CIA? NSA? Secret Service? Had to be an American agency; D'Angelo would have kicked out anyone from a foreign power until they came armed with a couple of senators and a note from their mommy.

D'Angelo didn't leave them in suspense. "Sit down. Agent Reeves, Mr. Tanner is here because a fingerprint search you authorized came up positive."

Megan frowned. "Which one? The ones I ran last week drew a blank. I've got one in progress right now, but I don't expect the results until—"

"Those results are positive, Special Agent Reeves," Tanner interrupted. "Whatever case they are involved in, that case is now closed as far you're concerned. Give me what you have, including any physical evidence, and I'll take it off of your hands."

"Really." Don could recognize a turf war when he saw it. D'Angelo had that look on his face that told Don to feel free to fight back. "I think we'll need a little more information before _we_ come to that conclusion." In the background, he could see the barest nod of approval by the Area Director. Yes, the battle had been engaged.

"That's too bad," Tanner replied. "There will _be_ no further data." He folded his arms, daring the agents to continue.

Don took that dare. He folded his own arms. "Then I don't think that this case is closed yet." He leaned forward, throwing down the gauntlet. "Convince me."

"Agent Eppes, this is a delicate operation—"

"Which is why the FBI needs to be informed." Don interrupted in the same manner that Tanner had just moments ago. "I wouldn't want us to go blundering about and ruin whatever sting you have going on. What agency did you say you represent? That's right; you didn't say."

Tanner glared. "Central Intelligence Agency."

_Point to the FBI_. Don deliberately put a puzzled look on his face. "CIA? Forgive me, Mr. Tanner, but I was under the impression that the CIA was responsible for overseas intelligence. That the FBI handled domestic affairs. What was your man doing here in L.A.?"

The glare this time didn't seemed to be aimed at the FBI agents but at the absent victim. "That's what we'd like to know. He was last posted in Damascus."

"What was his assignment?"

Tanner shifted the glare back to Don. "That's classified, Agent Eppes."

"And everyone of us sitting in this room has Security clearance," Don replied blandly. "What was his assignment?"

But Tanner wasn't a pushover. "Find a connection between the case you're working on and my man, Agent Eppes, and I'll tell you."

Don froze. Tanner didn't know that the John Doe was deceased. He probably thought that the FBI had questioned John Doe and was engaging in a little follow up. The CIA operative was fishing for information just as much as the FBI.

Time for a little shock therapy. Don leaned forward. "I'll tell you what the connection is, Mr. Tanner: your man is dead, which is why you are sitting in this office trolling for clues on the basis of a fingerprint search. That enough of a connection for you?"

Tanner's face went cold. _Bingo!_ Don thought. _Tanner hadn't known_. He eased himself against the back of the chair, putting forth an impression of a man totally in control of the situation. "Now, Mr. Tanner, I'll ask you again: what was your man working on?"

Tanner sighed heavily. He looked away; the open window behind Area Director D'Angelo showed the afternoon of L.A. with remarkably little smog for this time of year. It even looked pretty. "Gun running."

_Lie_. Don knew it as well as he knew his own name, knew that both Megan and Area Director D'Angelo picked up on it as well, knew that they wouldn't be getting any straight answers out of this guy; not yet. But they had to go through the motions.

"Name?"

"Garrison Kellman. Although I doubt that's the name he was using in this area."

Another lie, and the fingerprint search that Megan was running would come up with yet another false name, Don had no doubt, if it came up with anything at all.

"Next of kin?"

"We'll take care of notifying them," Tanner said, adding, "they're not in this part of the country. They're not part of the puzzle."

"Right." Don let that sit for a moment of uncomfortable silence, just enough to let Tanner know that everyone in the room knew that ignoring that detail was really poor procedure and that Don was willing to let him get away with it—for the moment. Especially since that was the only truthful part of Tanner's information. "Local contacts?"

"Good question. As I said, we thought that he was in Damascus."

"So you have no idea what he was doing here, in a dirty downtown office, waiting for someone to come and execute him?" Don let the words hang out in the air, bald and cold.

Tanner winced. "No."

Time to get rid of this bozo, and get on with the real work of solving the murder. "Mr. Tanner, it seems to me that it would benefit us both to investigate this case cooperatively. You will find out more about your gun runners"—_keep the sarcasm a little lighter, Eppes. This man is supposedly intelligent enough to catch your drift_—"and we remove a major criminal operation in this part of the country. We all walk away a little happier."

Translation: _the FBI ain't giving up this case, guy_.

"You'll keep me appraised of your progress?" Translation: _so that I can keep the FBI from making fools of certain CIA personnel? It's okay to make fools of yourselves. That's why we keep you around. You make us look good._

"We will be as forthcoming with information as you have been with us," Don reassured Mr. Tanner glibly. No translation needed: _you lie to us, and we'll lie to you, buddy. Enjoy the rest of your day._


	2. Cipher 2

Colby tapped his finger on the tasteful sign outside the office. "This is the place. This is the owner of the building where our victim was found, once I scraped through all the legal crap surrounding the name of this guy. Abner Martin, CEO and sole proprietor of AM Enterprises, therefore owner of at least six buildings that LAPD routinely has under surveillance. Class A One type citizen."

"Not such a big office for a guy who thinks he's such a big shot," David noted. "You think he's in?"

"I think we're gonna find out. After you, my friend."

"Thanks." David rapped on the door and pushed it open to Martin's office. The man paused in his dictation to his secretary. David swallowed a grin: the Twenty-First Century, with computers with voice activation, and this yo-yo still got off on a 1950's style secretary?

Colby had already come to his own conclusion: easy way to keep a no-skills mistress around. But that wasn't what they were here for. The FBI wasn't a for-hire agency to spy on errant husbands.

"Mr. Martin, Agents Sinclair and Granger of the FBI." David allowed a moment for the gravity of the situation to sink in.

_Most_ salutary: Martin's face paled.

"You can go, Gracie," he said thickly, trying for a semblance of dignity.

David filed that away for later follow up. They were only after background information, but this man's behavior suggested that he was involved in a little more than horseplay on top of a messy desk. He allowed his voice to become a little harder. "Mr. Martin, I understand that you own the building on Fourth Street, downtown?"

Martin gulped, but some of his color came back which told David that whatever the guilt involved, it wasn't about his case. "That's right. It's part of my real estate holdings. Why is the FBI interested?"

"We're interested because some criminal activity took place there," Colby told him. "Who was the building rented to?"

Martin now frowned; they were on solid ground. There were details that he knew very well. And Martin's face verified that whatever was going on, Martin wasn't involved. At least, not beyond petty larceny. "It wasn't."

"It wasn't what?"

"It wasn't rented," Martin repeated. "I've been trying to get that place rented out for the last three months, ever since Monmouth, Inc. moved up to Santa Barbara. It was empty."

"Pretty busy for an empty office." David pushed forward a head shot of the murder victim, AKA Garrison Kellman, for lack of a better ID. "Recognize this man?"

"No. Was he the one squatting in my building?"

It had the ring of truth. "Mr. Martin, we need to review your records," David said.

"I don't think—"

"He was murdered there. In your building." David let the words drop like stalactites in an ice-laden cave.

Martin changed his tune instantly. Petty larceny meant a fine that he could try to write off in taxes. Murder was more than he cared to be involved in. Martin swiveled his desk top computer around, and punched up a file. "Be my guest."

* * *

"So what did Charlie have to say?" Megan asked, walking into Don's office. She plopped into the opposite chair, clearly having nothing to add to the current case.

"Charlie?" Don frowned. "I haven't seen him yet today. And he dodged me last night, didn't come home for dinner," he added in an aggrieved tone. "I was thinking about heading over to CalSci to track him down. Why?"

Now it was Megan's turn to frown. "I saw him come in a little while ago. Isn't he here?"

"No, he's not. You sure you saw him?"

"Don, I spoke to the guy. Dark curly hair, distracted look all the time? _Really_ distracted this time. I almost thought he was going to walk into the elevator doors before they opened."

"Where was he headed?"

"I thought that he was headed for your office." Megan suddenly smiled, bright and false. "Fire me, Don. I'm a terrible investigator. I can't even tell where your brother is going in FBI headquarters."

"Request denied," Don told her. "You don't get a vacation that easily, Reeves." Don hoisted himself out of his chair. "Let's go find him."

"You at a dead end, too?"

"Yeah." Don gave his own false smile. "There are no leads, nothing to follow up. Can't figure out who the dead guy is, and the office stuff is going nowhere. David and Colby called in; the owner of the building had no knowledge of anything going on there and is now busily engaged in trying to figure out how to charge the murder victim for rent owed."

"I wish him luck," Megan grumbled.

A couple of phone calls was all that it took to discover the whereabouts of the missing consultant. They found Charlie sitting in the Forensics Lab, his laptop plugged in and a crowd of forensics specialists shoving and pushing for the opportunity to hear Dr. Eppes lecture. Don took one look: interrupting the man with over a dozen scientific types clustered around him would be an invitation to a riot. He and Megan sat down in the back of the lab to listen.

"You've already determined the density of the crystals of interest as well as the amount of energy required to cause them to shatter as the evidence indicates that they did. Where you're having difficulty is in the reconstruction of the object that they came from. Early indications suggested a large paperweight-like object, but later data tended to discount that." Charlie did something to the computer screen that Don couldn't see, but several in the crowd murmured appreciatively. "One of the data points that doesn't fit in is the shatter point. You have the crystals and you've been able to identify that they are not, in fact, glass, but a plastic resin with well-known properties which do not include a shatter point within the target range that you've pinpointed. Bottom line: you have two apparently contradictory facts. This suggests that you need to look further for a solution to this dilemma."

"If anyone says 'think out of the box', they get to clean today's glassware," one disgruntled voice called out. There was a generalized shudder at that threat.

Charlie grinned. "I think we can do better than that. What happens if you change the density of the object in question?"

"Dr. Eppes, we already know what the object is made of," someone objected. "We have the crystals."

"Which doesn't quite fit the hypothesis." Charlie started tapping on the keyboard again. "What if there was a foreign object embedded within that paperweight? Something looking approximately like this?" He added a final keystroke. A linear representation on the computer screen jumped out at them: a paperweight with an abstract carving inside. "Find this foreign object, and you will have solved the mystery of why the paperweight exploded the way it did."

There was a multi-tonal chorus of sound, all adding up to the concept of _I got it!_, then several people started all jabbering at once. Charlie developed that little half-smile that Don recognized from having seen it after all successful lectures his brother had given, the smile that said that _someone_ understood what he was talking about. The fact that the entire group achieved comprehension made it all the sweeter. Don took advantage of the crowd's distraction to push his way through, Megan in his wake. "Hey, buddy."

"Don." Charlie's smile broadened. "Didn't know you were here."

"Didn't know you were here, either, buddy." Don tried to keep the jealousy out of his voice. Charlie was Don's contribution to the FBI, wasn't he? He didn't mind sharing his brother's genius with Forensics, did he? "What'cha got?"

"A partial on the object that exploded," Charlie told him, oblivious to his brother's feelings. "It was a large, paperweight-shaped object, but at least 15 centimeters in diameter in a roughly oval shape, most likely with a foreign object embedded inside. It was composed of a plastic—"

"Yeah, yeah, some sort of plastic, I heard that part, Charlie." Don rushed him on. "Why do I get the feeling that you know a little bit more than that?"

Charlie got that guilty deer-in-the-headlights look on his face that Don had seen ever since he'd learned to needle his brother over everything. He zeroed in. "Give, Charlie. What do you know?" _This is almost too easy. Too bad it's work and not play_.

Charlie looked around, still guilty. "Can we go someplace a little more private?"

"Charlie, this is FBI headquarters," Megan said. "More private? What are you worried about?"

_Definitely_ unhappy. "Please, Don?"

Don sighed. "My office."

* * *

Charlie was no less unhappy in Don's office, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at the floor as if hoping that it would swallow him up before confession time.

Don went straight for the throat. "Charlie, you know that we've got zip on this case. If you know something, then you have to give it to me. What do you know?" He was gentle—this was his brother, after all—but this was business. With that Tanner guy involved, this was national security type business.

"Don…" Charlie looked away, clearly wrestling with something.

"Charlie, this is serious. This is interfering with a federal investigation, buddy."

"I…"

Megan silenced Don with a look, and Don was suddenly glad that the profiler was present. "Charlie," she began, drawing the man over to the bench, gently pushing him onto it, "Charlie, what's the problem? Don and I can't help you if we don't know what's going on." She sank down beside him, wordlessly offering support.

Charlie looked away. "I don't think I can tell you—"

_Flash of insight_. Don asked, "Charlie, does this have something to do with the NSA?"

The suddenly hunched shoulders told both Don and Megan that he'd hit the nail on the head.

Megan sent Don a glance, warning him to keep silent for the moment. "Is Don right, Charlie?"

Charlie couldn't look at either one of them. "It's classified, Megan. I'm not allowed to talk about it."

"Charlie, we have a murder here—"

Megan held up her hand to stop the senior agent from going any further. "Charlie, I understand that. I'm not asking you to give up any state secrets. But _you_ need to know that we've already had a visit by a CIA official, wanting to know about the murder victim. He let us know that the victim was one of his people. Charlie, this could be big, and we need to get a handle on it as quickly as possible. If this is national security, we need to know and move fast."

"One of his people? CIA?" Charlie shook his head. "Megan, Ned wasn't CIA. He was _NSA_. I met him a couple of times, face to face, back several years ago when I was consulting for them. But he was NSA. Definitely NSA. I only remembered his face this morning. Then I knew for certain."

"But this guy, Tanner—" Don interrupted himself, remembering the discussion in D'Angelo's office. "No. Think about it, Megan. Tanner never came out and said that our victim was one of his people. Just that the guy, as far as they knew, was in Damascus. Then he led us on a verbal merry-go-round, fishing for information." He became grim. "He didn't know that we have our own connections here. That Charlie would remember the guy. You said his name was Ned, Charlie?"

"I think I've already said too much."

"Then, don't talk. Listen," Don ordered. "You don't have to say anything. I'll do the talking. Our victim, Ned or Garrison Kellman or whatever his real name was, meets with someone. I'm willing to bet that the someone was connected with the CIA, either an agent or a suspect, or else our Mr. Tanner wouldn't be so interested. The paperweight thing shatters, methodology to be determined. We know that it happened before your friend was killed, because there were shards of plastic found underneath the body. If it had happened afterward, the crystals would have all been on top. Good so far?"

Megan nodded. Charlie remained still, so Don pushed ahead.

"You talked about something inside that paperweight. I'm willing to bet that whatever that foreign object is, it will hold the key to this murder." Charlie still didn't move. Don went on. "Ned and the other guy break the paperweight. Heat, I'm guessing, because of what you guys were saying in Forensics. They get this foreign object thing. Now is when it becomes fuzzy: where did this foreign object thing go? Did our other guy take it? Who is he? _What_ is he? Charlie?"

Charlie sighed heavily. "I think I'd better call some of my contacts at the NSA before I say anything further."

"You haven't said anything at all yet," Don reminded him. "This is all deductive reasoning, based on available evidence. What was that foreign object, Charlie? Why is it so important?"

Charlie looked down at the floor, and gave Don the important fact. "Putting an encrypted data stream onto a piece of glass and then sealing it into a chunk of plastic was a useful way of transporting information across borders. The agent would put it onto someone's luggage as a souvenir on one end, and another agent could retrieve it here in this country. The NSA gave that process up a few years ago when foreign agents caught on and would randomly steal paperweights. The encryption patterns on the data streams were the only things keeping those foreign powers from reading the messages."

"And you were one of the people creating the encryption key."

"Right." Charlie looked away. "Ned was on the other end of my tether."

* * *

"May I remind you, sir," Area Director D'Angelo said into the speaker phone in a tightly controlled voice, "that _I_ called _you_? That everyone except _you_ seems to know where your man is? Now, as the agency that has been tasked with unraveling this subterfuge, I would appreciate your decreasing the volume of this call, eliminating the unprofessional comments, and tell me just _what the hell is going on!_" That last came out in a roar.

Don was enjoying the show immensely. After running into so many stonewalls labeled 'classified'—_dammit, I've got my own security clearance, thank you very much!_—it was a pleasure to listen to someone get chewed out over it.

Another objection.

"Dr. Eppes is consulting for the FBI at the moment, not the NSA," D'Angelo snapped. "In fact, he wouldn't have recognized your man at all if he hadn't been consulted on this investigation and brought to the scene. You are extremely fortunate, sir, that we did engage his services. You'd still be picking lint out of your navel if we hadn't, wondering what had happened to your field agent."

Yet another objection—

"We all report to the same man on top," D'Angelo snarled, temper fraying. "If I don't get what I need, that's where my next phone call—"

Charlie interrupted. "Rob? It's Charlie."

There was silence from the other end. Then—"Charlie? That really you?" And: "This for real?"

"I wish it weren't, Rob. I haven't seen Ned for four years, but it certainly looks like him, even without the beard. It's Ned 'Take Aim' Ames. For real."

Don raised his eyebrows at his brother. _Take Aim?_

_Nickname_, Charlie mouthed back. As if Don hadn't guessed that part.

The speaker phone came alive again. "You only saw him once, Charlie. How can you be sure?"

"Twice. And it's him, Rob. Wishful thinking that it's not."

"Access the fingerprint request," Don put in nastily, with a sideways glance toward Megan. Colby, in the background, smirked. "Every other agency in the federal government has."

D'Angelo tossed Don a remonstrating look, but there wasn't any real heat in it. "Well?"

Heavy sigh. "You win, Mr. D'Angelo. Ned Ames was one of our top people, stationed in Damascus. He was involved in some delicate surveillance work and doing well with it for the last three years. Then something happened; we're not sure what. We lost touch with him about three weeks ago. Now apparently he has turned up dead on your doorstep."

_Finally getting somewhere_. "What was he working on?" Don asked. This was now business.

"Several things," the voice on the other end said. "No, really," he protested grimly. "Charlie, tell them."

"Rob's right," Charlie acknowledged. "It's pretty difficult to get an observer into those sorts of places, so the NSA uses them as generalists, inhaling all kinds of information for sorting out back home. Once the data has been correlated, a team of specialists are sent to deal with it, so as not to compromise the integrity of the observer." He raised his voice. "What were the last three days' worth of entries, Rob?"

"All routine. Troop movements in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. Six comings and goings of suspected terrorists but none associated with al-Qaida or Hezbollah. They were all from new splinter groups that have since been integrated into larger and less radical groups in those three weeks, according to other observers." Rob sounded as though he was reading from some papers in front of him. "There was a suspected theft of plutonium or enriched uranium—the report wasn't clear—from ex-Soviet scientists who haven't been paid in over three months but Ned thought that they just needed the cash so they reported the stuff as being stolen and pocketed the money themselves. There was a report on some biologicals moving across the Irani border, but that reference was vague and didn't get any independent verification. We dismissed it. And that was all."

"All?"

"Absolutely everything," Rob assured them bitterly. "We never heard from him after that."

"So what do you think is going on here?" Don challenged. "It's probably not troop movements, not here in L.A. Terrorist activity planned for here? Biologicals?"

"I would give a pretty penny to know the answer to that question," Rob said. "It's Special Agent Eppes, right? Charlie's brother?"

"That's right."

"He speaks very highly of you."

Don tossed Charlie a look. _Really?_ "Charlie hasn't mentioned you at all."

_Snort_. "I should hope not." Pause. "Your brother did some rather spectacular work for us a few years ago. You think you can pull off the same fireworks?"

Don looked at Charlie, who colored. Don turned back to the speaker phone. "You may not want to know the answer to that," was all that he said.


	3. Cipher 3

Colby was reminded of the old saw that ninety five percent of investigative work was drudgery. It never seemed so true as it did now. He and David were trudging from office to office, building to building, trying to find someone who had seen the pair enter the supposedly vacant office where the victim had been found. It was a low rent district, and those people tended to keep what they saw to themselves. The witnesses saw plenty, weren't willing to share, and without some sort of lever the FBI agents had no way to pry anything loose.

"I'm tempted to run a wants and warrants on some of these guys, just to see if we can shake something outta these dudes," Colby grumbled. "Something like a verbal headlock, ya know?"

"It may come to that," David agreed. "Forensics come up with anything?"

"Them? Hah." Colby snorted. "They're still babbling about Charlie coming down to talk to them. Like he doesn't come in every week, whenever Don calls. He's a regular."

"Yeah, but he doesn't usually talk to the Forensics guys,' David reminded him. "For them, that's a big deal. Like some sort of Einstein, only in math."

"I can't follow Einstein, either, David."

David chuckled. "Just repeat after me: e equals mc squared. e equals mc squared."

"And that's supposed to help us find this bozo how?"

"Worked for Einstein—hey! Who's that over there?"

'That' was a middle-aged woman dropping a letter into the mailbox that serviced the office of the dead man. If she had been wearing something postal, David would have ignored her. The quantity of advertising gimmickry in letters had long since outnumbered the quantity of first class mail. But since she was in a skirt that was too short for her overweight body and a sweater that covered up the worst of it, David was understandably curious as to what sort of mail was being delivered. "Ma'am! Ma'am! Wait a minute."

They hustled back to the building, pulling out badges.

"Agent Sinclair, FBI," David identified himself. "Can I ask what you were doing?"

The woman looked at him strangely. "I was putting that letter into the box for whatever moron works there. What's the matter? The FBI investigating misplaced letters these days?"

"Only if they go into that particular mailbox." Colby reached in and retrieved the letter. The dead man wouldn't mind, and this was a Federal case with Federal postal privileges that included retrieving mail addressed to dead victims. "Mind telling us your name?"

"Delores Kramowitz. I work in the next building over. What's going on here?"

"How did you get this letter, Ms. Kramowitz?"

"Good question. Try asking the mailman. _She's_ the one who screwed it up, putting that letter in _my_ box instead of the right one. Now I gotta walk all the way over here to get it where it belongs. They oughta' pay me instead of her."

David eyed the distance: less than one hundred yards from the woman's building, even including the walk from where he thought the office might be to the sidewalk. _Life could be tough for the able-bodied…_

"Is this the only letter that you've gotten for this address?" he asked politely.

"Naw. Whaddaya think, that postgirl actually knows what she's doin'? She's always sticking this guy's mail into my slot." The woman snorted. "You want more? I _got_ more. It's in my trash bin. You can have it, if you want to come get it."

David looked at Colby. "If the postal service thought that the vic's office was empty, that someone has gotten the address wrong…"

"The postal carrier might have tried to leave the letter where she thought that it ought to go." Colby finished the statement, agreeing. "Ma'am, where is your office? We'd very much like to see whatever other letters came for this man."

The gossip alert meter went _ping_ in the woman's head. Her eyes widened, and she fought down a gleeful grin. "He a terrorist, or something? You _are_ FBI, right? Regular G-men?"

"Yes, ma'am, we are." David flashed his ID one more time, slowly enough so that the L.A. sunlight could glint off of the gold. If the woman was going to gossip, she might as well get it right. "The letters?"

"The trash," the woman announced, clearly excited that her co-workers would see her in the company of the two FBI agents. "Gotta hurry, so they don't empty the bins."

There were four letters that they were able to retrieve from the woman's waste paper basket. Why she had chosen to hand deliver one and not the rest of the envelopes was a mystery that none of them had a snowball's chance in hell of solving. Three of the missives were addressed to 'occupant' but the fourth: Mr. Artemus Gordon.

"Bingo," said Colby, reaching for it.

David stayed his hand. "How do you know?"

"Look at the name, dude. Gotta be. How many spooks you know have that particular name?"

"How many spooks use their real name, Colby?"

"What real name?" Colby snorted. "This guy was into old TV series from the sixties."

David blinked. "And you know this because of the name—?"

"_Wild Wild West_, man." Colby shook his head. "You, with all your good taste, don't even know one of the seriously great pop culture icons?"

David now stared. "You need to get a life, Colby."

* * *

"And what is it that I'm supposed to be looking at?" Don Eppes was being serious. Seriously confused, but serious nonetheless.

Confused on several different levels. Not only was he confused as to what the forensics specialist was trying to show him, but he was confused about the forensics specialist him—or her—self. And he privately thought that Terry Gatsbacher liked it that way. Lean body with shapeless clothes covering over what curves may or may not have existed. Pierced ears, one on the left and two on the right. Heavy on the mascara, and a voice that would either make a castrati jealous or Marlena Dietrich melt, take your pick. _Gender confusion to the max_.

Did it really matter? Don's private life tended to run on empty most of the time, but even he wasn't that desperate. And, to be honest, he was afraid of what he might find under those sweats. There were some things that a field agent truly didn't need to investigate under any circumstances. Gatsbacher's private life was one of them.

Back to business.

"After your brother finished talking about this," Terry was saying, "I took another look at the crystals that came out of the crime scene. I took a long and hard look."

"And you found—?" Gatsbacher, Don decided, could be as long-winded as Charlie.

"I found two types of crystals," Gatsbacher announced proudly. "Isn't that great?"

"Absolutely." Don had no idea what he was agreeing to. "Why is it so great?"

Gatsbacher looked at him just like his high school teachers had, right after they discovered that Don was no Charlie Eppes. It was that combination of surprise, disgust, and a healthy dollop of pity that did it. Don cringed inside. _Dammit, it's not as though I'm an idiot, here! Not everyone can be genius material._

"I've uncovered the motive for the murder." Gatsbacher took pity on the field agent.

"Enlighten me." _Before I slap you with the same charge of obstructing justice that I threatened Charlie with_.

"There are two types of crystals here," Gatsbacher repeated, unable to believe that anyone couldn't understand the significance of the discovery. "_Two_ types. With differing densities. One boils at four hundred and twelve degrees Celsius—"

"I heard you," Don said impatiently. "Why is that important? What's so important about the boiling point of this stuff?"

"It's not the boiling point—"

"You just said that it was."

"No, it's the concept behind the differing points—"

"What concept?"

"That they're different—"

"And—?" Don was getting thoroughly frustrated. Next step: get out his gun, take off the safety, and aim!

"It's the key."

"The key." What was it with all these scientific types? Couldn't they communicate in plain English? "The key to what? Some locker in the downtown bus station? I need a little more explanation here, Terry. Humor me. Start from the beginning."

Gatsbacher heaved a sigh laced with leftover onions from his/her lunchtime meal. Don held his breath.

"When your brother came in, he explained that one way to pass information is to pass the information in a coded format one way, then send the key to de-crypting that information in another. This enhances the secrecy. Even if the enemy gets the information, they won't be able to decode it without the key. The paperweight that exploded in the victim's office contained the key."

Now Don was able to leap onto the train of knowledge. "And you have that key. You found it in the crystals."

"Right!" Gatsbacher beamed; the slow student had finally understood the lesson. "But not quite."

"But not quite," Don repeated. "_How_ not quite?"

"We only have part of the key. Not quite half, maybe closer to a quarter of the crystal. Rather ingenious, actually. It was embedded as part of the decoration of the paperweight. We're not yet certain what happened to the other part. The key cracked, and the larger part was lost."

"Taken by the other man?"

"That I couldn't say." When Gatsbacher looked prim, he/she looked effeminate. But Don wasn't about to assign a gender just yet. _Shudder_. "It's very possible—likely, even—that the other half of the crystal was shattered in the explosion. Which is bad news for you, Don. Without that key, no one will be able to decipher whatever code it belonged to. Not you, not me; not anyone. Sandy is working on the other parts of the crystal, to see if there are differences in the density, any pieces that we can put back together again to get a hint as to what it said. Sandy and I are going to have to get downright _personal_ with it." Terry looked positively gleeful at the thought.

Good. Sandy—another person of indeterminate sex, and a _very_ close friend of Terry Gatsbacher—was welcome to discuss his/her findings in a fast email to Don. The field agent beat a hasty retreat before he was subjected to any further scientific or gender discoveries.

* * *

All too soon, the scene once again became the Forensics lab. This time the participants included David, Colby, and Megan, as well as Terry Gatsbacher and Don. Don almost had to force himself to attend.

"It's your letter; you open it," Don offered.

It wasn't generosity that prompted the team leader. It was fear. "What if it contains anthrax powder?" Colby asked.

"I've already irradiated it," Terry Gatsbacher said cheerfully. "No danger there." David and Colby, upon arrival back at FBI headquarters, had hustled down to the Forensics lab to investigate their new acquisition. Colby had notified Don and Megan of the discovery, while David had coerced Gatsbacher into leaving the latest and greatest forensic experiment in order to move forward with the current case. All four field agents kept nervous hands inside pockets; the bubbling liquids in beakers looked about to explode into little fountains of rainbow death. Don himself saw absolutely no connection between this scene and his memories of high school chemistry with Mr. Kostmeyer beyond the fact that both episodes appeared to contain great danger to a certain Don Eppes. Don fingered the keys in his pocket, just to have something to wrap his fingers around.

"Good." Colby slit the letter open, tapping it to see inside.

"Of course, there could be something impervious to irradiation," Terry added.

All of them backed away: Don, Colby, David, and Megan.

"But probably not." Terry peered at the now open envelope and inhaled. "There's no powder inside. No perfume. Just a piece of paper." Terry reached inside.

"Wait!" Don all but shouted. "Fingerprints?"

Terry looked disgustedly at the senior field agent. "Teach your grandma how to bake cookies," he/she sneered, waving latex-covered hands. "Besides, people this careful, you think they're going to be considerate enough to leave prints for us?"

"Stranger things have happened," Don muttered, thinking that one of those stranger things was standing right in front of him.

Terry Gatsbacher was correct; there were no fingerprints, and a moment's worth of dusting proved that.

And there was another strange thing: the letter inside. It was a single piece of paper, covered with symbols. Very odd symbols.

Colby stared at it. "Looks Greek to me," he quipped. "Isn't that the Greek symbol for alpha?"

"Some of it looks like Hebrew," Don offered doubtfully.

"Some Cyrillic stuff there," Gatsbacher added with entirely inappropriate good humor. "In fact, I think I see at least four different alphabet systems. Hm, maybe more. Isn't that Goa'uld?"

Megan glared at him. "That's fictional. There's no such thing."

"Doesn't matter. You're going to need the Translations department to make heads and tails out of this one. It's a mess. Every other word is in a different language. It'll take four different translators to put this into English."

"Not Translations." Don kept staring at the undecipherable paper. It was trying to talk to him, tell him what the hell this was all about.

"Not Translations? Who, then?"

"A certain mathematician."

* * *

But a trip to the local high-powered university where that certain mathematician spent most of his working hours needed to be postponed for a short visit with someone that Don would rather not talk with. Don hadn't a clue as to how the CIA agent knew to turn up at that exact moment. _Guess it's why they call 'em 'spooks'_, he mused.

Tanner wasted no time. He held out his hand. "The letter, Special Agent Eppes," he requested. "It's CIA business."

Don wasn't cowed. "Right now it's FBI business, Agent Tanner," he returned in the same flat tones. "This is still a homicide investigation."

"This is national security."

"Which is why the FBI is handling it, rather than the LAPD."

"You haven't the _facilities_ to handle this, Special Agent Eppes."

Don folded his arms. "Care to elaborate, Agent Tanner?"

Tanner pointed at the copy of the letter in Don's hand. "That particular type of code is standard in my line of work. Without my resources, you'll never be able to decipher it."

"Neither can you," Don returned mildly. "The key was destroyed in the explosion at the crime scene. Without that key, no one can solve it."

"I think we have another copy of the key," Tanner said, daring Don to disagree.

"Really?" Don allowed disbelief to color his tones. He smelled a ruse. On the other hand, they were supposed to be working together… He smiled instead, giving the impression of _we're all friends here_. "I can't give you the original, Mr. Tanner. That's evidence. But I'll make you a copy if you'll promise to let us know what it says as soon as you find out. I'm sure that it will help us both to get what we need." _And it will be very interesting to hear what sort of lies you come back with_.

"Done." Tanner held out his hand to shake on it.

Shaking that man's hand was not what Don wanted to do. He compromised by putting a copy of the letter into it. "I'm looking to hearing your version of the information," he said. _As well as my brother's_…

* * *

"Are you sure that he's got a cell phone?" Megan's attempt at humor wasn't the greatest, but Don wasn't in the mood for riotous laughter.

"Oh, he's got one," he replied, stomping on the brake just a little harder than he needed to in order to halt before the red light. "Keeping the battery charged is another story altogether."

Megan turned her attention back to the road, wrinkling her nose at the VW Beetle who thought that stopping at red lights was for wusses. "You sound pretty certain that Charlie can crack the code on that paper. I don't know, Don. I mean, Charlie's good, but this thing has at least four different languages on it. How is he ever going to figure it out? Especially if it's not in English?"

"I have confidence in him," Don said stoutly, wondering the same thing. _I mean, Charlie's good, but is he good enough? There's no key to crack this code with, no matter the CIA says. Can anyone solve it?_

_Gotta have faith._

He glanced in the rear view mirror automatically, gauging the traffic around him. The hair on the back of his neck stood up—was that the same silver sedan that had been behind him six blocks and four turns ago? Naw, couldn't be. Silver was the new color du jour; every other car on the street was silver. But there were the same two dark heads in the front seat, and his 'spidey sense' wasn't just tingling, it was sending up full-fledged 'danger, Will Robinson' signals—

"Megan, I'm going to take a swing around the block," he said, forcing casualness into his voice.

Megan wasn't fooled. She peered backward, able to twist around in her seat. "Silver sedan, license plate 4CFK212?"

"I can't see the plates, but it's that silver sedan."

"I'll run the plates."

"I could be wrong."

"In which case I'll have to shoot you for making me nervous." Megan called it in, getting the answer back in mere minutes. "Rental car. And it's still behind us."

"After three turns around the same block. Somehow I don't think they're lost, do you?" Don tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "Call for back up. Maybe we can take these guys out, see what they're up to."

"You think it has anything to do with this case?" Megan wondered.

"Possible. Neither of us has any court cases coming up, no reason to kill us off before a lurid trial. You dump anyone recently?"

"Yeah, but he didn't drive as well as the guy in the sedan. That was part of the reason I dumped him; he almost got us both killed in a car accident. You?"

"You had a date? And you didn't tell me?"

"You're not my mother, Don."

"You don't even tell her, Megan."

"Got me there," Megan conceded. "You?"

"Me, what?" Don turned the corner, trying not to look as though he was acting like bait for the sedan behind them.

"Dump anyone recently?"

"Hah." _Slow down, don't pull away too fast_. "The tales of my love life could fit on a single sheet of paper right now, triple-spaced. Where's the back up?"

Megan listened to her cell. "Five minutes. They're stuck on La Cienega."

"Five minutes! What do they think this is, the watched pot that never boils? We're the FBI, for cripes' sake!"

"You think you can string our friends along for five minutes?"

"Only if they're stupid," Don grumbled. "How do they look?"

"Not stupid. Don, they're increasing speed, pulling up on us."

"You think they've realized they've been made?"

"Yeah." Megan's voice trailed off…

Only to erupt: "_Duck! They've got a gun!"_

Don wrenched the wheel sideways, diving below the dashboard. Bullets sprayed the window, shattering it as badly as the crystalline key to the letter. Don stomped on the brakes, allowing the attacking sedan to shoot ahead of them and out of easy target range.

Megan was already on the radio. "Shots fired! Shots fired! We need immediate assistance!"

Good: the Suburban was still in working condition. Little breezy, but working. Don poured on the power, trying to catch up to the rental sedan. He could do it, he could do it…

A stroller and a young mother stepped off of the curb into the path of the oncoming sedan. She realized her mistake, pulling back with a shriek.

The sedan got past. The Suburban, wider body, never would. It was a choice between catching the rental sedan and killing the stroller-bound infant. It was a choice between a young, innocent life and national security: lose-lose situation. Don made the call. Don once again stomped on the brakes, cursing.

The sedan roared off down the road. And, in the background, sirens screamed, signalling the impending arrival of reinforcements.

Don glared after the sedan, then favored the direction of the sirens with the same anger. "Little late, guys."


	4. Cipher 4

An hour later, pretending not to be shaken from their close call--_still got work to do here, guy_!--Don and Megan walked into the lecture hall to find Charlie winding down his lecture for the day. His brother had his back to them, jotting something incomprehensible to ordinary mortals onto the whiteboard, adding underlining for emphasis. He turned back around. "So what this means, for those of us who are expecting the homework to be done, is that you can use these equations to determine the probability of event A occurring over the probability of event B. To further explain, the probability of receiving an 'A' for this course is substantially greater for turning in the solutions to the _even_-numbered problems than it is for turning in the solutions to the _odd_-numbered problems at the end of chapter four. And by 'turning in the solutions' I do mean show-your-work. Answers only will get minimal credit only."

"But Prof. Eppes," one young girl wailed, "we can't check our work if you want the even-numbered problems. How do we know if we've gotten the right answers?"

"You're right," Charlie told her, and the rest of the class. "However, you have just earned bonus points for reading ahead and realizing that the odd-numbered problems have the answers at the end of the text. Collaborative work is not only permitted, but encouraged," he finished, dismissing the class. "There is strength in numbers, pun intended. Hi, guys," he greeted Don and Megan as they approached. "What's up?"

Then Charlie wrinkled up his nose. "Don, I hate to tell you this, but you should shower after working out. I _thought_ my class tried to escape a little early."

Don's answering smile was tight. "Tends to happen when somebody tries to kill you."

"What?"

"Everyone's okay," Megan soothed, throwing a significant glance Don's way. "Nobody got hurt. Just a few feathers ruffled."

Charlie eyed the pair of them, not convinced and more than a little upset. "This assassination attempt have anything to do with the exploding paperweight thing you asked me to look at the other day?"

"Probably not." _I'm not lying to my brother_, Don told himself. _It could be any one of a half dozen cases that I've closed recently, that are going to trial._ "Anyway, it's over. But you're right, we need your help."

"Talk." Charlie perched on the edge of the desk.

"Got better than that. It's show and tell time, Professor Eppes." Don pulled out a copy of the paper that had arrived in the letter that David and Colby had found. "Ever seen anything like this?"

Charlie's face froze. "Where did you get this?"

"Then you do recognize it."

Charlie stared at the paper for several long moments. Don, mindful of Megan's silent urging behind him, kept still for as long as it took. _But I'm not leaving here without some answers, brother mine._

"Charlie?" To Don's satisfaction, it was Megan's nerve that broke first. Her voice was the one to try to recall the mathematician to reality.

Charlie wasn't even looking at the paper any longer. He was staring off into the distance, squeezing the paper into his hand as though to absorb the information written onto it directly into his flesh.

"Is this what got Ned Ames killed?"

"We think so." Megan moved in, put a sympathetic hand on Charlie's shoulder. Don envied her ability to touch people not just physically but emotionally. Right now it was what would get Charlie to open up, to tell them what they needed to know to solve this murder.

But Megan shook her head imperceptibly at Don: _not yet_. Don swallowed his impatience, waited for Megan to work her magic.

Silence. _Therapeutic_ silence, Megan would call it. The ability to wait, to keep quiet until the witness—in this case, the expert consultant—was ready to talk.

Charlie finally sighed, slumping onto the desk. He fingered an ancient pen mark etched into the wood of the desk, the ink long since faded. "I worked with Ned four, almost five years ago. He was a bright guy. I used to think that he'd end up teaching math somewhere, after he retired from the NSA. I kept telling him that I'd give him a reference when he was ready to get into a real line of work."

"You worked closely with him?" That was a given. What Megan was doing was encouraging Don's brother to keep talking.

"Not all that closely. I met him twice, in person. Mostly we 'talked' over the internet, on a secure line. But I taught him how to encrypt this sort of information, taught him how to create an almost unbreakable code."

"Almost unbreakable?"

Charlie's smile was positively anemic. "There's no such thing as an unbreakable code, Megan." He seemed to have forgotten that Don was even there.

"And you taught him."

"I taught him." Charlie looked at the whiteboard as if it was reminding him of something. "I developed the key that he used when sending back information from where ever he was stationed. I taught him what he needed so that he could get himself killed." Bitterly.

It was time to bring Charlie back to reality. Don cleared his throat. "Do you know what this paper says?"

Charlie blinked. "What it says? No, not yet. It's in code. Goa'uld, actually, is what we called it." Another weak smile. "That's what _Ned_ called it. He was a SciFi buff, loved some of the television series. There was this really neat one that he showed me, a sixties SF comedy about a space-faring garbage scow." He sighed, bringing himself back on task this time. "His nick name was Ned 'Take Aim' Ames. He was also a dead-on marksman. Held a few records somewhere, I'd heard." Charlie looked away. "And now you have him, dead, lying on some pallet in a morgue."

"You liked him." Megan kept Charlie talking, wouldn't let him stop.

"It's hard to like someone at the other end of a code line, but those of us back at NSA headquarters would get a real feel for people at the other end. You start to know how they think, how they put stuff into code. You get to _know_ them, in a strange sort of way." He looked away.

"And you knew Ned Ames."

"Yeah." Charlie gave a short laugh. There was nothing funny about it. "As much as anybody who consults knows a field agent." He set his lips. "Give me the paper, Don. I'll go to my office. I'll find out what Ned was trying to tell us. It'll take me a hell of a long time, but I'll decode the damn thing and find out what was important enough to get Ned killed."

* * *

"Again, symbols." Charlie traced the coded message onto the whiteboard in his office. "It's what math is: symbols. A symbol for one, a symbol for 'A', all of which make up communication. Oriental languages can use pictographs, but the Western tongues use symbols to represent sounds. Or numbers, which then go on to represent quantities. Here we have those symbols scrambled into various different systems. As in any equation, step one is to reduce the format of all the symbols into a single system; in this case, English. Some of this is easy. The Greek letters have clear analogs in English." At this point Charlie was more talking to himself, but Don didn't mind. Charlie was pulling off his magic, and that was what was important. 

"The Cyrillic, the Russian alphabet, again is relatively straightforward. Here Ned uses only the symbols that are common to English, although one has to be aware of the differences that some letters have. The 'C' for example, sounds like an 'S' and is never a 'K'. And the 'P' is really an 'R'. This lower case n transliterates into a 't'. And so forth, and so on." Charlie jotted notations below some of the symbols. "It's when you get into the Arabic and the Hebrew that it becomes complex. One needs to know the sound of the symbol in order to be able to transliterate it into the English sound, and from there into the appropriate symbol. Then the hard work begins." He looked up at Don and Megan, breaking off his own lecture. "Don, this is going to take a while. I can probably finish this first part in a couple of hours, setting in the probabilities for some of the more challenging transliterations. But without the key to the code, I'm fishing in the dark. This could take days to figure out; more likely weeks."

That gnawing pit of the stomach sensation grew. Don narrowed his eyes. "But you can do it, right?" _Got a lot riding on you, Charlie_.

"Yes. Eventually. But Don, I need that key," Charlie repeated. "Ned was very _very _good at encoding his information. Think of those little decoder rings that we used to get in cereal boxes. You could only see the information after you ran it through the decoder ring. Ned's key is like that. I have the message, but half of it is garbage, and I won't know which half until I run it through the decoder ring, otherwise known as the key. After I get this first part decrypted, I could get the message decoded within half a day at most. _With_ the key, that means," he added. "Without it?"

"Without it? How long?" _As in, maybe the key got shattered in the explosion and doesn't exist anymore?_

"Days. Maybe a couple of weeks, working full time on it. This is complex stuff, Don," Charlie said. "Cutting edge, cipher-wise. There's a reason that the NSA puts so much money into its code work. We're not talking a simple decoder ring here, Don. We're talking a process that I spent most of six months developing."

Don winced. "That bad?"

"But, Charlie," Megan objected, "if you developed it, can't you figure it out? I mean, this is your system."

Crooked smile. "Megan, this is the NSA. Your consultant develops a communication mode, then goes back to civilian life. For the most part," Charlie added, holding up a finger to forestall any objections. "The occasional FBI consulting job not withstanding. Wouldn't you want to make a few alterations? Just so that consultant couldn't be tempted by a few million to divulge the secrets?"

"Charlie, you wouldn't do that," Megan said. "You're too honest."

"Too honest for your own good sometimes," Don added wryly.

Charlie shrugged. "Let's just say that I did get a few offers, a short time after I left. I'm pretty sure that one of 'em was a set up, to see what I would do, but a couple of the others?" He sniffed, remembering, grinning. "You might have had to jet down to my own private island for a consultation, with what they were offering."

"That much?"

"More. Enough to buy Dad his own separate island as well. And it would be _my_ jet."

"Ouch." Don rubbed his hip pocket, where he kept his wallet. "I think I'd better talk to Accounting, tell them to up your consulting fees. Wouldn't want the competition to steal you away from me."

Charlie shook his head. "Don't bother. Strictly on price, you couldn't afford to match what the private or another governmental sector has offered."

"Which means we give you something better." Megan was on the ball.

"Yeah." Charlie's face lit up. "How often does a math professor get to talk about solving a murder?" He turned to jot something onto the whiteboard.

_Bang!_

The window shattered, courtesy of a small metal object fired from a long-barreled rifle. The bullet drilled straight into the Hebrew _aleph_ on the whiteboard. The _aleph_ was located a mere three inches above Charlie's shoulder.

No time for thought: Don reacted. Charlie, the civilian, was closest; Don grabbed his brother by the shirt and threw him to the floor of the office. Charlie let out a yelp of surprise. Don scuttled to the window, handgun in his fist, peering out. _Dammit, this is twice in one day!_

Megan was already there, her own gun in her hand, her cell phone in the other. "Shots fired," she reported, her voice terse, giving the location of Charlie's office. "Everybody okay?"

"Good, here."

"Fine." Charlie's voice held a suppressed tremor.

Don spared him a look, then did a double take. "Charlie, you're bleeding! Where did you get hit?"

"I am?" Charlie dabbed at his head, brought his hand down with blood over it. He blinked, and paled.

"Don't move," Don instructed. _Dammit, where was back up?_ He was going to have a word with whoever. Second time today they'd been shot at! What was this, pick on the FBI week? "Megan? You see anybody?"

"I think they've gone." Megan peered out through the shattered window, daring to lift her head a little higher above the sill. When no shots arrived to muss her hair, she crawled back to her feet. "I think that's a definite. They're gone."

Don too surveyed the outside scene. There were still students walking around as if nothing had happened. For them, nothing had. They hadn't even heard anything out of the ordinary, just the sound of a car back-firing and with all the barely running vehicles that students had, the sound of a back-fire was no big deal.

The shooter was gone. Don assessed the possible locations: judging by the angle of the shot, it would be someplace high up, say across the courtyard from that other classroom building there. Yes, there was an open window just one floor up compared to right here. Don marked that in his memory for an investigation. They'd dust it for fingerprints, but, with the professionalism of this attempted hit, he doubted that they'd get any.

He turned back to more important things. "Charlie?"

Charlie blinked, wiping away the blood running into his eye. "I don't understand. It doesn't hurt."

"It will," Megan promised. She held a wad of tissues to the spot on his forehead, applying pressure. "I think you got nicked by a ricochet. Just sit right there. The paramedics should be here in a moment."

"What happened?"

"Somebody shot at us," Don said grimly. "They tried to take us out on the way here, and now this." _And my brother almost got in their way_. He looked back at Megan. "It's either you or me, kid. Which one of us is someone trying to off?"

"More importantly," Megan asked, "why?"

* * *

Colby ambled back into Charlie's office with a gait that said _relaxed_ to outsiders. Don knew better. There was a tension in the agent's gait that spoke of nerves stretched to high-wire tautness, ready for action, reflexes honed under combat conditions. Which these were, Don reflected. Nothing like getting shot at to make a man sweat. Don was stinking even to himself at this point. 

"A few shells left, Don," Colby reported. "Just enough to tell us that someone was there. It was pretty obvious; they didn't bother to cover anything up that they didn't want to. It was a professional job. No prints, some smudges where someone set down the case that they brought the rifle in with. The bullets say something like a high-powered sniper special, maybe a modification or two. I've got Forensics on it, trying to track down exactly which type of weapon. Maybe we can get a clue off of that."

Don frowned. "No leads as to who they were from?"

"Nope."

"I've pulled all of your recent case files," David told him, "yours and Megan's, which are pretty much the same ones. There are a couple of people coming up that wouldn't mind seeing the both of you not capable of testifying against them but, Don, none of them really look good for this. One case is that bank fraud that might go either way even with your testimony and the other has a history of non-violence."

"Yeah. I remember. That guy that always tipped his hat on his way out of a job." Don grimaced. "Keep at it. Getting shot at comes with the territory, but I'm not real thrilled with innocent bystanders getting hurt." He looked over at his brother. The mathematician was sitting in his chair, the seat swiveled away from the desk so that the paramedic could apply a clean white dressing over the wound on his head. Better; Charlie didn't look quite so pale. "Charlie?"

"You stink," Charlie informed him, "and I'm not talking about that time you pounded me after that baseball game that you lost when I was seven. You stink even worse than you did earlier today. Take a shower."

Don chuckled. "I take it this means that you're all right."

"No, I'm not all right. I have a head ache the size of Larry's cyclotron, computer room included."

_Yeah, but that's a good thing_, Don wanted to tell him. _You're alive_. "Colby, take him home, okay? There's no concussion, right?"

"No concussion," Charlie put in irritably before the paramedic could say anything. "Although you wouldn't know it from the way I feel. And, anyway, I'm staying right here."

"Huh?" Was Charlie nuts?

"I have the things that I need to crack that code here in my office, not at home," Charlie informed him. "I'm staying."

_Certifiably, completely nuts_. "Charlie," Don said patiently, "you just got your head bounced by a bullet. In my book, that entitles you to go home and rest. The code can wait another day." _I hope_.

Charlie hit him with the big one. "This means that I have to tell Dad what happened. I get to listen to him yell at you."

_Ouch_. Don steeled himself. Consultant or no, Charlie had to go home to rest. And the Forensics team still needed to sweep this office, and for that they needed Charlie out of the way. All of which meant that Don needed to stand up and take his punishment like a man. "He'll find out, anyway. Better to let him know now. Then he can shoot me himself."

Colby inserted himself with a move for which Don knew he would have to thank the agent sometime in the near future. "C'mon, Charlie. I'm taking you home. No more arguments. You won't be able to work with your head pounding, anyway." He took Charlie's elbow, lifting the mathematician firmly out of the chair and toward the door, not taking no for an answer.

"I'm taking the paper with me," Charlie protested. "Wait! I need that book, too. No, not that one! That one!"

_Fine_. Don handed him the text without a murmur. At least Charlie wasn't trying to stay here any longer. "Not a problem." Don gave in easily. Two minutes of trying to work, and Charlie would fall asleep on the sofa at home. Don could live with that. "Just don't let anyone else see the paper, okay? This is national security, remember," he said. "NSA? CIA? A bunch of other alphabet soup agencies, remember?"

"I remember," Charlie said, cranky. Don knew that tone. It was the same one Charlie had used when Mom made him put his math books away when he was too tired to see straight.

He grinned at the memory. "Go home, Charlie. I'll check up on you later. _After_ I get your office cleaned up." He looked around, seeing the stacks of papers that had floated to the floor in the wake of the bullet and the activity that followed. "Maybe just _some_ of your office. The _rest_ is your problem."

* * *

Colby kept his car moving smoothly through traffic. There were only a few cars in the area despite—or perhaps because of—the afternoon hour. Kids weren't out of school yet and the hookers weren't out of bed yet. The only people on the streets were the independently wealthy types and those for whom employment meant going hither and yon in a car for a living. He glanced at the man beside him; Charlie had closed his eyes, though he didn't appear to be sleeping. 

He wasn't. Without opening his eyes, Charlie said, "you _will_ watch out for my brother?"

Quiet chuckle. "You got it, Charlie."

"Who's after him?"

"Aren't you supposed to be resting? Isn't that why I'm taking you home?"

"Answer the question, Colby." Charlie cracked one eye open. He winced at the bright sunlight, but determinedly kept it open. "This is my brother we're talking about."

"Who was been successfully looking out for himself for the past several years, including the wild wild west of New Mexico. I think he can handle himself, Charlie."

"Yes, but—hey!" Charlie sat up, both eyes open.

"Charlie?"

"That symbol! It's the Goa'uld symbol for naquedah!"

"You lost me there, buddy."

Charlie stared straight ahead, both eyes open now, seeing nothing. "I couldn't figure out what language that last symbol was, and it just came to me! It's the Goa'uld symbol for naquedah. It's part of the message that Ned sent. It stands for _nothing_ in real life. Therefore, the message refers to enriched uranium. Weapons-grade uranium. That's part of the key, Colby!" He got excited. "Hurry up. I need to write this down!"

"Use some paper. There's some on the back seat. How did you get from a TV show to radioactive weapons?"

Charlie started to shake his head, then thought better of it. "Naquedah is a power source that goes boom in fiction. Anyone who knew Ned would know that. That's the key to the key."

"The key to the key. You've lost me."

Charlie chuckled, a welcome sound to Colby's ear. "That's okay. You just tell Don when you see him that the FBI should be concentrating on that angle. Somewhere, somehow, nuclear weapons will be involved. Information on who's buying what and where, that sort of thing."

"That makes sense," Colby mused. "If this Ned guy was doing intelligence in the Middle East, that would be an important angle to send back home. Even worth killing over."

"Which brings us back to my brother. What's going on with that, Colby? Somebody shot at him and Megan _twice_ today."

"And missed both times," Colby replied.

"Third time's the charm."

"I thought you weren't superstitious."

"I'm not, and don't change the subject. I'm referring to statistical probabilities over time. Who's after my brother?"

Colby got serious, knowing that it was the only way to satisfy the passenger in his car. "We don't know. There are several possibilities."

"None of whom look good for this. I heard you in my office."

"Then you know as much as I do," Colby told him firmly. "Don's made a lot of enemies over the years. It's natural, especially for an FBI agent of his caliber. We're following up on it. Let it rest, Charlie. Go home, sleep off your headache, and then solve the code. That's how you can help Don." His voice trailed off, concentrating on traffic. There was that large black sedan up ahead, driving too slowly for road conditions. _Maybe looking for a house number_…

_Bang! _

Someone rear-ended them, shoving them forward into the sedan ahead. Backward motion jolted into thrown forward as the front end of Colby's car connected with the object in front. Air bags deployed with another bang, deflating as quickly as they'd opened. Charlie yelped in shock.

_Damn rotten timing for a car accident— _

No accident. The ramming from behind was deliberate; the automatic weapon pointing through the shattered windshield was evidence of that, as were the faces covered with black ski masks. Colby's instinctive move toward his own gun stopped. Death was very close.

"Smart," one masked figure growled. "Get him." He gestured to the other side of the car.

Another masked figure yanked Charlie out of the car, leaving the car door open. He staggered, and another masked gunman grabbed his arm. The two of them hustled the mathematician to the forward sedan, shoving him inside.

"Don't come after us." The masked gunman aimed.

Colby ducked below the dash. Bullets sprayed across the seat where he'd just been sitting. The next round took out both the radiator in the car and the front tires. Seconds later he heard the roar of a powerful sedan engine taking off into the distance.

He darted out of the car, trying to see the license plate.

_Too far away_.

Colby slammed his hand down on the hood of his ruined car. Sweat poured off of him as the adrenalin seeped away, his pulse deciding that it no longer needed to race. Death had come _this_ close.

Colby straightened unhappily and pulled out his cell phone. He sternly told his hand to stop shaking with after-shock, and grimaced. After this, Don wasn't the only one who needed a shower.


	5. Cipher 5

Don stared at the paper in front of him, wishing that he could make the symbols give up their secrets by sheer force of will alone.

_Key: gone_. Shattered.

_Charlie: gone_. Kidnapped.

_Information: gone_. Lost, without the key or the man who developed the key to tell them what it said. So near, and yet so far. The paper held the information that he needed to get his brother back and yet there wasn't one person in this entire FBI headquarters who could decode the damn thing.

Even the NSA professed ignorance. Don himself had faxed the damn thing over to their in house experts, who were working hard at it even now. Without the key, they said, it would take days if not weeks. Just like Charlie had told him, so what the NSA said had a reasonable chance of being accurate.

At least now there was some action on a higher plane than his own. The NSA had flown in their own people who were walking in right now. The trio was comprised of two large and hulking types and one smaller man who was the thinker of the bunch.

The thinker was Rob Derrick, the man that Charlie had cut in on just yesterday on the phone, talking about their murder victim. The others? Well, Don had seen the bodyguard types before. This Rob Derrick must be pretty valuable, he remembered thinking, to rate this kind of protection outside of his ivory tower.

Derrick had quickly disabused him of that notion. "No, Special Agent Eppes—it is Eppes, isn't it? They're bodyguards, but not for me. They were supposed to be for your brother. Although it appears that we're a little late." He grimaced. "Comes from taking commercial airlines, having to wait through the security lines. I swear, my next budget line item is going to put in for a jet that _isn't_ available for every Congressman and woman to conscript. This might not have happened if he'd had protection."

Don tightened his lips. "This might not have happened if you'd had the sense to let me in on how dangerous a situation this was for my brother." Derrick looked away. The remark was inflammatory, but Derrick deserved it and knew that he deserved it. There was no rebuke.

Derrick himself reminded Don of Charlie, although the man possessed flaming red hair. Both slight of frame, both had the same burning glint in their eyes that demanded answers to the universe's multitude of questions. Both had the quick mannerisms that said that they couldn't be bothered to wait for mere mortals to come up with the same answers. Don kept waiting for Derrick to mention a quadratic equation analysis cross-matched with a Poisson distribution.

Derrick sat Don and his team down, taking over a conference room on the fourth floor. Don's cubicle was too small.

"I'm here to offer help," Derrick began, sitting down at the head of table. "No, really," he said, noting the suspicious look that all four FBI agents cast in his direction. "He's your consultant, and your brother, but he has also done work for us. And Ames _was_ our man," he added pointedly. "I think we have mutual goals here, Agent Eppes. I'm willing to lay our cards on the table, if you'll do the same."

"Fine." Don managed not to cross his arms, but it was a close call. "You start."

Another sigh. "I was afraid you were going to say that," Derrick told him. "You realize that I don't have much to offer?"

"Then neither do we." This time the arms did get crossed.

Derrick read the non-verbal message and gave in gracefully. "Ames was stationed in Damascus," he started. "He was one of our best field agents, sending back information about the situation in the Middle East. He was brilliant at knowing who he could contact, who gave him reliable information and who didn't, and putting the pieces together to form the whole puzzle. His loss will be keenly felt for years."

"Charlie told us pretty much the same thing," Don said, "as did the CIA." He let that statement ring out bold and bald. _Don't rehash old data_. _Give me something new_.

"The CIA is involved?" That came as news to Derrick; that was clear. "What's their angle?"

"Good question. I was hoping that you could tell us."

"Who was it?"

"The agent who came to see us? He identified himself as Mr. Tanner; his ID went through clean. He tried to tell us that Ned Ames was his man…" Don trailed away, thinking. "No, he didn't." He turned to his team. "You were there. Did he ever once actually come out and say that Ames belonged to the CIA?"

"Of course he did…" Like Don, Megan let her own voice drift off, thinking.

"You're right. He didn't." David came to the same conclusion. "He let us jump to that conclusion. He led us to where he wanted us. Like sheep." David Sinclair was not happy with himself. "It was only because we had Charlie that we were able to see through that ruse."

"I wouldn't get too annoyed," Derrick told him. "If this Tanner is who I think it is, he's one wily character. He's successfully fooled some of the greatest minds in the business. Medium height, medium hair, piercing eyes? Looks like he could blend into a crowd?"

"That description could fit a couple thousand people," Don said carefully.

"I was going to say that he's the man with a thousand faces, but I thought that was too trite." Derrick nodded. "Yes, I'll lay odds that Tanner is one of the CIA's high level operatives." He gazed out through the window, not really seeing the L.A. cityscape beyond. "Now what would you be wanting with Ned Ames?" he wondered to himself.

"And my brother," Don put in harshly.

"Well, yes, him too," Derrick agreed. "Though I expect that Charlie Eppes was merely a matter of convenience. Once the coded message surfaced, everyone wants to get their hands on it. In decoded form, of course, which is where your brother comes in. They could have their own experts work on it, but why waste your own resources when you can snatch someone else's? Particularly the guy who developed the code."

"Wait a minute," David protested. "Are you telling me that the CIA is responsible for kidnapping Charlie? An American citizen, on American soil? Why couldn't they try and hire him, like everyone else?"

Derrick shrugged. "Wouldn't put it past them. And, let's face it: your brother has the best chance of cracking that cipher of anybody around. He devised the basis of it. Take Ames just used the tool. And now that's he's dead and the key destroyed, the only person who has a reasonable shot at figuring out what that message says is Charlie Eppes."

"So what was Ned Ames working on?" Don leaned forward.

"A generalist, if you catch my drift—" Derrick started, when Don cut in.

"Generalities don't get us anywhere. I want specifics, and I want them now. Catch _my_ drift?"

Not going any further. Derrick could see that plainly. If he wanted any more cooperation from the FBI, there would have to be something concrete. "Ames was our top man in Damascus, Agent Eppes. There were three areas that he was working on currently: Israeli troop movements vis a vis the Lebanon border, Hamas communication patterns, and a small piece of the Irani nuclear build up. All three were up to date when he disappeared."

"And you didn't go looking for him?"

"A weekly information drop was standard for him. Any sooner, and it would look too obvious for the couriers. Ned used a variety of couriers, anyone from American tourist style types to some of the more trustworthy street urchins who'd work for a few dollars and a pair of American sneakers. He missed the first drop, and we didn't worry. It happens. This isn't the most secure of positions. When he missed the second week, we sent someone out to investigate."

"And he found—?" Don pushed.

"Nothing. He's still looking; was, until I called him back after your call."

"Did he pick up any clues?"

"Not a thing," Derrick said easily.

_Right_, Don thought. _This is where the cooperation comes to a screeching halt. My turn._ "We don't have much, either," he confessed grimly, trying to put as much earnestness into his own voice as Derrick had. "We have a small part of what Forensics thinks is a crystal key to a code, but the other half was shattered when the object broke. It was subjected to intense heat, possibly an explosion. At this point, it's worthless. Even Charlie wouldn't be able to decode the message with the remnants of that key. You've already seen the autopsy report on the victim." Don carefully avoided saying 'your man.' Too many unpleasant associations there. Better to keep it as impersonal as possible. "We've recovered a letter sent to the office that contains information in code, as you know. Have your people made any progress on deciphering it?" _There. I've just given you the same information that I gave you yesterday. Which is the same quantity that you have given me._

Derrick's frown said the whole answer. "Not a chance this side of the snowball in hell. This is Charles Eppes' work. His keys are as close to unbreakable as anything there is." He looked at Don. "Bottom line, if we don't find your brother, we might as well go whistling for whatever's in that letter. And I mean, find him _alive_. With his head in working condition."

* * *

Voices sounded outside of the door. Charlie huddled in a miserable ball in the corner of the room. It was the only reasonable place to be: there was no furniture, not even a rug to soften the hard concrete floor. A chair was a distant memory. He was in a large, empty square of a building with four solid walls around him. No way to leave.

To say that he _hurt_ was off by several levels of magnitude. 'Beaten up' was too mild, and 'thoroughly thrashed' implied running away from the neighborhood bully. Charlie had done that before, when the bully was taller than he by several inches and out-weighed him by twenty pounds or more. How come bullies always seemed able to outrun him? Weren't they supposed to be slow and out of shape in additional to being cruel?

No, the previous couple of hours were more in the line of being taught exactly what his place in the scheme of things was to be. There was a task to be done, one that Charles Eppes had been selected to perform, and to let him know that there would be no dallying, his captors had taken the liberty of placing bruises every place on his body except for his head. _That_, they needed intact.

More voices outside the door. "He softened up?"

"Yes. No serious damage, but he should be quite willing to cooperate."

Charlie wasn't completely certain about that; the damage part. There was a jiggly feeling around the rib cage that didn't feel good at all. Not that he'd ever had a broken rib, and would be more than happy to find out that he'd kept that record unblemished, but still…

The door opened, and four men entered. One was the man with the gun who had shot Colby when they'd kidnapped Charlie himself. Charlie wondered about the young FBI agent. No one could have lived through a spray of bullets at that close range. Colby Granger must be dead, the rest of Don's team grieving over their loss. Two of the others entering had recently participated in the 'softening up' process that had just been spoken of. The one with the scar Charlie would have a hard time forgetting. He suspected that the scar would figure prominently in his nightmares for the next several months. Assuming he lived that long.

_Big assumption, Eppes_.

Okay, time to make a few more assumptions. Contrary to what his big brother continually told him, Charlie did indeed pay attention to the world around him. That this had something to do with Take Ames' death was a given, which meant that this collaboration of nasties wanted Charlie to do some serious cipher work. Fine; that Charlie could do but considering that they went to all this trouble to secure his cooperation, Charlie had a strong suspicion that these goons were not from his friends at the NSA, or his brother at the FBI. In fact, their appearance led him to believe that they were quite likely from one of the various Middle East extremist groups that Ned had been collecting information on. They all dressed in careful Western style clothing, selected to blend into the population and not stand out: jeans, tee's without any fancy wordings that would lead a passerby to glance a second time to try to read what was written across the chest. Actually, as a group, they were well-favored: strong, dark and even features, toned and in shape. Even the man with the scar carried the mark as almost a decoration. Charlie could imagine both Megan and Amita giving them all a second and possibly a third look.

Bottom line, whatever was in the message that Ned had sent, Charlie didn't want this bunch to have it. The kidnapping in broad daylight was a broad hint along those lines. The question was: what to do about it?

The answer was equally obvious: play along. Wait for Don to come looking for him. After the attack on Colby's car, Charlie was certain that a substantial portion of the L.A. branch of the FBI was working on determining his present location and, knowing Don, the FBI would have requested and received a lot of cooperation from the LAPD as well. Charlie's part in this mess would include staying alive until they could find him. Of course, should the opportunity to escape arise, Charlie wouldn't mind taking advantage of it.

Fortunately, no matter what, decoding the information without the key was going to take days if not a week or two. Now, if he could only convince his captors of that…

"Professor Eppes." The speaker was one of the handsome ones, looking cool and calm and comfortable. And un-bruised. Charlie, dumped onto the floor and uncertain of his ability to stand up unassisted, felt at a distinct disadvantage. "I imagine that you probably know why you're here."

Charlie cleared his throat, to give himself time to think. _Gotta delay, preferably without annoying them to the point of more violence_. "Tell me." It seemed like a safe thing to say.

The man grabbed Charlie by the shirt, hoisted him into the air, and slammed him gently against the wall. At least, to the man it seemed gentle. To Charlie, who had already received significant damage, it rattled his teeth. Blackness wavered around the edges. "You will decode the message. Now."

_Gotta put up at least a token resistance. That's all they understand. I hope_. "Go to hell."

The blow that followed was swift and predictable and doubled him over. The man dropped him to the floor, where Charlie simply lay gasping for breath.

"You will decode that message, Professor Eppes," the man assured him. A swift kick to the ribs—not the broken one!—turned Charlie onto his back. He stared straight up into the man's face.

The man held three photos in his hands. One by one he showed them to Charlie:

Larry Fleinhardt.

Alan Eppes.

Amita Ramajuan.

All of them, caught in an instant of time. One walking into the library. The other poised to enter a car. The third strolling across the CalSci quadrangle.

A cross-hatched target was casually penciled in over each face. The message was clear: cooperation or death.

Charlie coughed again, the movement catching at his ribs. "It will take days," he muttered desperately. "There's no key."

Once again the man grabbed his shirt. This time he sat Charlie up, shoved him against the corner. Charlie fought to keep from curling up into himself. The terrorist grabbed his hair, wrenched Charlie's face up to stare at him. "You have two days, Professor Eppes. On Day Three, one of these people will die."


	6. Cipher 6

Colby couldn't wait to get Don aside after the NSA man Rob Derrick had left, but David Sinclair got to him first with Megan right on his heels.

It didn't matter; Don waved both Colby and Megan back inside with David. Megan plopped into a chair, although Colby was too tense to sit. He perched on the edge of Don's desk instead. David remained standing, arms folded and face set.

Don held up a hand. "Analysis?"

"Trying to pull the wool over our eyes."

"Lie after lie after lie."

"Just enough facts to make us think he's on our side."

Don nodded, grimly satisfied. "Then we're all in agreement. This Rob Derrick may have worked with Charlie in the past, but there's something going on here that no one has bothered to let us in on. And I, for one, am not particularly happy over it. Ladies' day at the ballgame: Megan?"

"Interview analysis: he's trying to get something from us without giving anything away. His movements were studied, not natural. He would catch your eye, then deliberately look away, just as the books say to do. And then there was that 'innocent' gaze." Megan sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. "I believe that he's worked with Charlie; we all heard Charlie identify him on an earlier call. But I agree with you, Don. There's something he knows that he isn't telling us. He's trying to use us, and I'd like to know why before we give him any additional information."

Don nodded, accepting her words. He gestured for David to speak. "Next in the batter's box: David Sinclair."

"I just heard back from my contacts overseas," David began. "I have a little more information on our dead guy; not a heck of a lot, but enough to be interesting. He is indeed Ned Ames, just as Charlie said, and he's got a good reputation among our guys. He was also known as a whiz at getting information back to NSA headquarters. But here's the interesting part: his last contact says that he was putting together information about a terrorist plot that would take place on the west coast somewhere. Something that was coming together, then it fell apart. Right after that was when Ames vanished."

"And turned up here, dead, on our doorstep," Don said grimly, "which suggests that something significant happened. Question is, is it here or over there?" He turned to the final member of his team. "Okay, batting clean up: Colby."

"I'm going over the kidnapping in my mind, Don, trying to think of what I could have done differently." Colby was clearly unhappy.

Don set him at ease. "We've been through that, Colby. You're lucky to be alive, not dead in a hail of bullets. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Thanks, but that's not what I mean, Don. Charlie and I were talking; he was gabbing about the code. And I just remembered: he figured out part of it!"

_That_ was interesting. All three of them leaned forward.

Colby was satisfied that he had their attention. "He talked about something called naquedah, something that doesn't exist except in fiction. Said Ned Ames used it as an unbreakable part of the code."

"Don't keep us in suspense, Colby," Megan chided. "Did Charlie say what it referred to?"

"Yeah." Colby paused, knowing all eyes were upon him. "He said it stood for nuclear stuff. Enriched uranium, plutonium; dirty bombs."

Don sat back in his chair, stunned. "No wonder everyone's playing games." He looked at each one of his team. "People, this is not a drill. We have a serious problem. If someone is playing with nuclear fire, this has just increased our worries by a whole other level of magnitude." He tapped the paper on his desk, the one that contained the incomprehensible gibberish of code. "What does this code say? Is it a plot to blow up something right here in Los Angeles? Is it instructions to a local terrorist cell?" He stared at the paper once again, wishing that the words would somehow jump up and shout out the answer. "We _have_ to find Charlie."

* * *

Two days. Two days to crack a code that he'd taken six months to create, and that various other people had tweaked to their own needs. Professor Charles Eppes had designed it to be as close to unbreakable as possible; now he found himself regretting that expertise. This would have been a lot easier if he'd taken some shortcuts, and left some flaws in place.

He had come up in the world. His bare prison room now possessed a couple of blankets in the corner to sleep on, and a table and a chair.

And the three pictures. His captors had tacked them prominently on the wall in front of him, to remind him what kind of stakes he was playing for. They gave him a computer to work with, but refused any internet access. They were taking no chances that he'd call out for help.

That didn't mean that Charlie wouldn't watch for any opportunity that might present itself. Not that he saw any. The door was locked, and the sole window had been boarded over. Any attempt to exit through there would result in noise and a quick re-capture.

Of course, there was always the 'hit-'em-over-the-head-with-the-chair routine. Charlie snorted to himself. Don had told him several times that the move was over-rated. That it was more likely to get him killed than free. Still, if the two day mark came close, Charlie would try it. Better to get killed himself than to have his father or two closest friends assassinated. One NSA agent and one FBI agent—Colby Granger—were enough. He'd seen Colby go down in a hail of bullets as Charlie was being stuffed into the sedan, and Charlie grieved for the loss of the young man who had so much to live for.

Charlie too had much to live for, and an equally as great incentive to make it happen. Communication, that was the key. Somehow he needed to communicate with the outside world. He needed to find out where he was; it wasn't too far away, he knew that. They'd taken him in their car for only a couple of hours but he'd been blindfolded and unable to identify anything.

Time to take a break from the code. His captors were outside the door somewhere. Charlie went to the boarded up window and tried to peer through.

It was bright sunlight outside; it looked like mid-morning. Through the crack he could see a dusty alleyway, an overflowing trashcan tilted against a brick wall. Beyond that: nothing. No people, no cats or dogs, not even a pigeon to disturb the dust. No help there. It looked as though there was a street signpost at the corner but when Charlie finally worried away enough of the board to be able to see the sign on top of the post, it was missing. Some kid or other had stolen the street sign. Charlie's location was probably decorating some college student's dorm room. _Wonderful; done in by students again_.

Not that it mattered. Charlie had no way of contacting Don, no way to contact anyone at all. All he had was the code, waiting for him to crack it and figure out what Ned Ames was trying to say.

He took another look at the thing, the symbols lying mute on the paper. It was a copy, probably one of the copies that Don had made. It had that look to it, with a dark edge on side where the paper had been imperfectly placed on the copier. His kidnappers wanted him to decode it, Don wanted him to decode it, the NSA wanted him to decode it; he'd better work some more on it. He might not want his kidnappers to have it, but decoding it and giving it to them weren't necessarily the same thing. And, if he were forced to do so to save Larry's or Amita's or his father's life, he would need to have it ready if at all possible.

He'd already transliterated the symbols into English. There was always the chance that Ned had used Arabic as the base, but Charlie tended to doubt it. Ned preferred to work in English when he was sending stuff back home and there was no reason for him to have changed. Besides, it was hard to transliterate 'naquedah' into anything other than English.

But what would Ned be doing talking about nuclear things? Charlie had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew the answer to that. There was entirely too much radioactive material trading hands in the world right now, and that sort of stuff getting into the wrong hands was exactly what Ned was being paid to find out about.

And that was a clue to the code. With a sigh, Charlie bent his head to the paper, tapping in instructions to the little laptop that he'd been offered to help with the work. At least concentrating on the code would allow him to ignore his various aches and bruises.

* * *

"I hope you realize that this almost never works," Colby murmured, his eyes closed.

"That's right," Megan told him in soothing tones. She had the field agent relaxing in a comfortable chair that they'd 'borrowed' from the conference room, breaking all sorts of regulations by lighting a scented candle in Don's office. _If the Fire Marshall chose this moment to drop by…_

"It's okay if it doesn't work. It's a long shot," she added, a smile slipping into her words. "We're grasping at straws. Keep your eyes closed, Colby, and just listen to the sound of my voice. Let everything relax."

"Right. We're on the edge of a possible nuclear hot zone, and you want me to relax."

"Keep your eyes closed," Megan instructed him, refusing to get upset. "Take your mind back in time. You're sitting in your car, in the driver's seat. Charlie is beside you. You're driving with traffic; there isn't much of it. You and Charlie are talking. What is he saying?"

"He's talking about the code." Colby finally settled in, the worry lines in his face easing. He made a conscious effort to relax further. "He's telling me about the naquedah."

"That's good," Megan encouraged. "You're not looking at him. Your attention is on the road. But you still heard him, with the corner of your mind. What did he say?"

A small smile curved on Colby's lips. "He was worried about Don."

Don arched his eyebrows. _Me?_

Megan hushed him with a look. "Worried about Don?"

"Worried that Don couldn't take care of himself." Colby's voice had become quieter, more calm. More detached. "As if that could happen."

_Nice to know that you have confidence in me, Colby_.

"You told him that Don would be okay."

"Yeah."

"Go back a little further," Megan urged. "What did Charlie say about the naquedah?"

"That it meant that whatever the code said, it was talking about nuclear stuff. Enriched uranium, plutonium, that kind of thing. Had Charlie pretty worked up. Said that it was something specific to this Ames guy, that he was the only one that ever used that word." The words flowed more easily, now that the dam had been broken. "Charlie said that it would have something to do with the buying and selling of weapons-grade nuclear material."

"That's good," Megan told him, keeping her own excitement level under control. "What else did he say?"

Colby frowned, his eyes still closed. "Nothing more about the uranium stuff."

"But he did say more."

"Yeah. Worried about Don."

Megan let him muse about that for a moment, then gently urged him on. "Let's move forward in time, Colby. You're driving. There's a sedan up ahead. It's moving slowly."

"Yeah." Colby looked relieved that there was something more he could remember. "Big black thing. Too big to get around. I gotta go slow behind it. At first I think that they're looking for a street sign or something."

"You slow down," Megan confirmed. "Then what happens?"

Another frown. "Wham! Right in the back. I get rear-ended. I'm thinking that there's a total moron behind me not paying attention to the road. Next thing I know, there are guns waving in my face."

Don whispered into Megan's ear, "Ask him what kind of guns."

"What kind of guns?" Megan asked obediently.

"An automatic," Colby said, looking off into the distance with his eyes still closed, seeing something only he had seen. "Military grade; our stuff. Probably got it from some local gun shop. Nothing too spectacular. Maybe a Heckler of some kind, or an M-16. Whatever it was, it threw a hell of a lot of lead."

"How many were there?"

Another frown. "At least three. I didn't see all of 'em; I was a little busy at the time ducking. Two of 'em grabbed Charlie, hustled him off in the black sedan in front. Another one took out my windshield. Lucky he didn't take me out along with it."

"_Black_ sedan," Don hissed into David's ear. "That's a detail that we didn't have."

Now came the difficult part. "I want you to go back a few minutes in time," Megan instructed, "before the other car hit you. You were watching the black sedan. You came up very close behind it because it was going so slow."

"Yeah. Crawled right up onto their ass. Getting ready to honk at 'em."

"There's a license plate on the back of the car. Did you see it?"

Eyebrows furrowed. "Not really."

"That's okay," Megan hastened to reassure Colby. "Can you tell if it was a California plate?"

"Yeah," Colby responded slowly. "Yeah, they were California plates. Started with a 'C'."

"That's good," Megan said, trying to restrain herself. "What was the next number?"

"Not sure." Long pause. Don wanted to shake the man, shake the answer out of him. "I think it might have been a nine."

"That's very good, Colby. Can you remember any more?"

Colby cocked his head, trying to see the license plate in his mind's eye. "The last letter. It was a Z. I remember thinking that it was the last letter of the alphabet, in the last position on the plate. Stupid thing to be thinking."

"But it worked," Megan told him. "It helped you to remember. Now, I want you to think about the car itself. It was a sedan, and it was black. What was the make and model?"

Colby was trying. "It was big. I think it was something American; a Lincoln or a Caddy, maybe. It was big."

"It was black. What color was the interior?"

It was too much. Colby blinked, and his eyes opened. "It was…" he trailed off. "I'm sorry, Megan. Haven't the foggiest." He blinked again. "Did you get anything?"

"You gave us a partial license plate." It was more than they had had. "That narrows it down," Don told him. "You did good, Colby. Especially for someone who doesn't believe in this 'hypnosis crap'."

Colby snorted. "You're lucky you got that much. You run the plates; I'll take the rental agencies."

Don turned back around. "What?"

"The rental agencies. Where that patch came from." Colby looked confused. "What did you think I meant?"

"_What_ patch?" Don tried to stay calm.

"The patch on the back fender…" Again, Colby's voice trailed off. "Don, I can't believe that I didn't remember that! Don, there was a sticker on the back fender. The car was a rental! Lame Duck, or something like that! The patch looked like a couple of wings!"

Finally! A lead! Don snapped into action. "Megan, run the partial; see what cross-matches against a black sedan. David and Colby, hit the phone books. I want the address of every car rental agency in the area that looks like it might fit Colby's description of the bumper sticker. Hustle, people!"

They hustled.

* * *

Charlie couldn't help his immediate reaction to the noise of the door knob turning: he cringed. Whatever was coming, it wouldn't be good. Bruises ached in sheer memory, and the three pictures hastily tacked to the wall seemed to loom down on him: _only you, Charlie, can save us_.

There were only three of his captors this time: the one who'd shot Colby, the one with the scar, and one of the bigger men who'd dragged Charlie out of the car. It was enough. Charlie wasn't going anywhere. The biggest man positioned himself in front of the only exit, daring the smaller mathematician to try to escape.

Scarface wasted no time. "Have you decoded the message, Dr. Eppes?"

Ice stabbed through Charlie. "It's difficult. There are so many variables. But I'm making progress," he added hastily. "Please, you have to give me more time. I've almost got it."

"Take as much time as you need," Scarface invited pleasantly. But the threat came through his words, emphasized when he grabbed Charlie's arm and twisted it behind his back. The move caused Charlie's ribs to grate against themselves; he cried out. "Yes, professor, take all the time that you need," Scarface hissed. "Others will pay for it."

The third man, the one who had shot Colby, opened up a digital camcorder, flicking the switches to cause the electronic device to whir to life. Scarface shoved Charlie's face close to see the recorded scene on the tiny camera.

Amita walked slowly across the quadrangle, her shoulders slumped. It was clear that she was upset, that something wasn't going right in her life. Charlie had the obvious suspicion that it was his own absence that caused that drooping posture. In the lower corner of the screen Charlie could see today's date. These men could have re-timed the clock on the camcorder just to try to fool him, but somehow Charlie couldn't see them taking that sort of trouble. There was no need to do all that work. It was Amita, and the recording was made today, and it was a very clear message to one Professor Charles Eppes: _decode the cipher or she dies. Soon_.

* * *

"Don, I fail to see how I can help you," Dr. Fleinhardt said. He had placed himself in Charlie's chair, behind the desk, steepling his fingers as a sign of his own frustration. The chaos on Charlie's desk appeared to affect him not one bit; another sign of worry on the organized mind. "I am a physicist, not a mathematician. And, beyond that, your brother—who was the creator of the afore-mentioned code—told you that he himself would have difficulty in deciphering the missive sans the key. I am perfectly willing—yea, even eager—to assist, but I fear my meager skills will not be up to this task."

The whiteboard had been pushed to the back of the room, the earlier Forensics team having done their measurements and determined that where Colby had found the bullet casings was indeed where the assassin had stationed himself. The team had been thorough, and, as a result, the office was much tidier than Don was used to seeing it. There was a large piece of cardboard taped over the window, preventing the cooler air-conditioned air inside the office from escaping into The Great Outdoors. Not that the air-conditioner was currently in use; the weather was cool for this time of year and, in typical L.A. fashion, lacking in humidity. Outside was downright pleasant.

Don was beyond noticing such sundries as the weather. He was more interested in a) finding his kidnapped brother and b) finding out where the suspected stash of nuclear weapons-grade fissionable material was being kept, preferably before that fissionable material did what fissionable material was supposed to do: go boom. At this point he didn't care that neither 'a' nor 'b' took priority; as far as Don Eppes was concerned, they were of equal importance. Finding one meant finding the other, and finding both meant that the world would be a substantially better place to live in.

All of which meant that the code needed to be broken. He turned to the other non-official person in the room who was desperately trying to figure out which keys to tap on the laptop. Despair edged his voice. "Amita?"

"I'm trying, Don." Amita had the same sense of despair. "But there's a difference between _really really good_, and _genius_. I'm really really good; Charlie's a genius. And he worked on this thing for six months. There's no way I can break it in twenty four hours. I've got computers already trying," she added petulantly. "I'm writing the programs as fast as I can, trying to break it through sheer computer muscle, trying to figure out what it says. Everything keeps coming back garbage. One possibility even turned up as a rhyme with some really foul language."

"Was it—?"

"Not unless there's a black cat involved, doing something unspeakable with intestines."

Don shuddered. "Could that be some sort of secondary riddle?"

"It's always possible, but I doubt it. Charlie's work is always more elegant than that. When you are through decoding, you know it because everything simply falls into place. He taught me some of the basics—national security level basics, not the stuff that gets taught to undergraduates—and there was always that thrill when the pieces went together like magic." Amita sighed. "I'm not even close."

"Perhaps if we threw the weight of the university mainframe toward this problem?" Larry suggested.

Amita considered, but shook her head. "It won't help. Despite the route that I'm trying, it's not power we need, or computing speed, it's the inspiration. Even the best computers can only do what we tell them to. Even a Cray wouldn't be able to solve this one without human guesswork."

"Ah. Yes, you are quite correct," Larry nodded. "I see that. Naquedah."

"Not you, too? What is this naquedah stuff?" Don felt confused. "What does it have to do with anything?"

"A fictional, fissionable material," Larry explained. "It's from an actually rather intriguing television series. One of the lead characters is a brilliant physicist, not unlike myself—"

"Yeah, I know that, but—"

"It illustrates my point, Don," Amita broke in. "Without the proper referents, no one will be able to break this code. It's not completely in code; parts of it are references to things that only Ned Ames and his handler back at the NSA knew. Naquedah was one of them, and it means nuclear material. Charlie knew that, and he may know other pieces. It's like when teen-agers talk. You can get the gist of what they're saying from how they say it, but some of the stuff they say doesn't make sense because it's in teen-speak. For example, if a 'black cat' refers to a certain hangout, there's no way you'd know that unless one of the teens told you. This code is like that. Even if I could decipher it, I might not recognize that I'd gotten it right because of the referents that I'd miss. The only sure piece I have is the nuclear material, and that's because of what Charlie told Colby."

"Then it's hopeless." Don let the words hang out in the open air, praying that someone would contradict him.

No one did.


	7. Cipher 7

All right, it was a lead, no matter how meager. Four possibles, based on the license plate and the rental sticker that Colby remembered. Don divvied them up, sent Megan and David after one set of rental agencies and kept Colby for himself on the off chance that the younger man might remember the car when he saw it.

The first place was a bust. Don had flashed his badge, cowed the young girl behind the car rental desk into doing whatever he wanted without a squawk, and checked out the car with the suspect license. Colby took one look and turned it down. "No go, Don. Sorry. Sedan, yeah, but this model has a rounded end. The car I saw looked more like a Lincoln, or a Cadillac. Square backside. This ain't it."

Even a lead that went bust was still progress, Don kept reminding himself. It meant one less avenue to chase down, less time wasted for other things. They drove to the second rental place, Colby taking a call from Megan telling them that her and David's first possible also went bust. David and Megan had identified the people renting the car as a nice little old couple from Milwaukee visiting the grandchildren. No mystery there, and no kidnappings; not unless one wanted to count the fact that Grandma had kidnapped thirteen year old Brittany and taken her clothes shopping at South Coast Plaza, bringing her home with a few hundred dollars' worth of new outfits, only half of which were appropriate to wear to school. David and Megan headed off toward the next possible.

Don pulled into the Wings For Rent Car Rental agency. The lot was only half filled with cars, suggesting that the business was doing fairly well and that most of the cars were out fulfilling their primary function of providing temporary transportation. He jumped down from the driver's seat of his Suburban, Colby letting himself out on the other side, walking toward the main office building.

Colby grabbed his arm. "Don, wait. What's the plate on that sedan over there?"

"Which one?"

"That one." Colby pointed and, without waiting for an answer, started over toward it. "Look at the plate. C nine, with a Z then an S at the end. Not quite what I remembered."

"Close enough for government work," Don told him. "Aren't we lucky that we work for the government?"

Colby was already getting excited. "I think this is it, Don. I can't be certain, but it sure looks like it. It _feels_ like it." He walked around the vehicle, carefully taking in all the details, trying to remember whatever he could through the fading adrenaline haze. "I think this is it," he repeated.

_Satisfaction_. "Let's go see a man about a car," Don said, jerking his thumb toward the office building.

The desk clerk was an old man with a fringe of white hair looking morosely at the ledger in front of him. Why he should be morose, Don couldn't tell, since it appeared that there was no red ink in the balance column. The business was doing well.

And another thing: this man's ancestry had been in the Middle East. Don couldn't tell exactly where, and there was no handy little name tag anywhere to give him a clue, but the dark skin and fine features were unmistakable. It could be coincidence, but Ned Ames had been working in the Middle East. And the kidnappers, in the short glimpse that Colby had seen, had looked Middle East. And the Middle East could boast no shortage of terrorists these days.

Don didn't like coincidences.

He pulled out his badge, letting it flash in front of the man's nose, watching for a reaction. "Special Agent Eppes, FBI." He tucked it away, noting the freeze frame of fear that fled across those fine features. No help there; most people had some guilt somewhere that they were afraid would get found out. Most of it was petty stuff, not worthy of the FBI. Still, there was almost always that flinch. Don would have been surprised if it hadn't occurred; _that_ would have been suspicious. "This is Agent Granger. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Of course," the man replied smoothly.

Yup. Suspicious. Didn't the guy want to know what this was about? Or did he already know?

As if reading Don's mind, the man added, "what's this about?" Trying to keep it cool. There was just a hint of an accent there, as if the man hadn't grown up in this country. A bit British, perhaps, or a country that had had lots of colonial contact with the Empire in the not so distant past.

Too late. The hesitation gave it away. Don's spidey sense was shrieking 'guilty, guilty, guilty!' He zeroed in. "We're investigating a crime that may have used a car rented here," he said, keeping it pleasant, keeping the urge to go for the man's throat in check. "Do you have a sedan with these letters in the license plate?"

The man looked back at him guilelessly. _Too innocent_, Don interpreted, hoping that the expression didn't come across his own face to tip the man off. The man turned to his computer, tapping in a few data points. "Let me see. I should have an answer for you momentarily."

Colby was letting his interest wander around the office. He picked up a business card. "Wings For Rent," he read, as if the name didn't hang over the front entrance. "You own this place, Mr…?" He let the words trail off, clearly fishing for a name.

"I just work here," the clerk replied. "No, I don't think we have any car here with those particular letters in them." _Wrong!_ The man started to shut the computer down. All the way down. So that no one could get back in without a password or a lot of determined hacking. It was an action that was _very_ out of place; no one would shut down the business computer in the middle of the day.

Don leaned over, placed a hand on the old man's arm to stop him. "I think I'll need to see some ID, sir," he said. "Do desk clerks handle the books? Not in my experience." He jerked his thumb at the obligatory business license posted on the wall, stating that Wing For Rent was owned by one Khalid al-Farouhk. Don's voice was still pleasant but the steel underneath was not. "ID _now_, sir."

The old man's voice quavered artistically. "I think I left my driver's license at home…"

"And you're still driving those cars around? Moving them here and there? I saw you with one on the road just a few moments ago," Don lied with a straight face. "Driving without a license? That's a crime here in California." He pulled out his cell phone. "I'm certain that my colleagues in the LAPD would like to know about this." He smiled, with no warmth in it. "And, as an added benefit, we can establish your ID as soon as we run your fingerprints. Just for the record."

"I—I think I have my license in my wallet," the old man stammered. He had lost the gambit, and was now looking to escape Don's trap with as much salvage as he could. "I'm Khalid al-Farouhk," he admitted, fear in his heart.

Don forebode to remind the man that he had just lied to Federal authorities. He could always pull that back out if he needed to squeeze. Right now, information was more important. "The black sedan that we're looking for is right out there, in your lot. We've already identified it," he pushed, not letting al-Farouhk off the hook. "It was involved in a crime yesterday. Now I'm going to assume that you weren't behind the wheel when it happened, but you are going to allow Agent Granger and I to go through your records to find out who was. In fact, you're going to help us. Is that clear?"

"Yes." The man's face went wooden, and Don could all but read his thoughts: _those men will kill me. But if I don't give in immediately, these agents will arrest me right now. Rock and a hard place._

"Of course, if you simply tell us who rented the car, Agent Granger and I will simply 'forget' that we were ever here." Don dangled the bait. "We might even let out that we obtained the information elsewhere." He tightened his lips again. "Just to confuse our suspects, you understand. It would be entirely in our own best interests, not in anyone else's, and certainly not for the advantage of any fine and upstanding business owners."

_Snatch. Grab_. "One name was Abdu Sadiq. The other never gave me his name."

"Address?"

al-Farouhk gave it up without hesitation. _In for a penny, in for a pound_. "That's what they told me. It was on Sadiq's driver's license. I didn't ask any further."

_Meaning you didn't want to know_, was Don's unspoken response. By the look on Colby's face, the younger man was thinking the same thing. "What did they want it for?"

al-Farouhk shrugged expressively. "I rent cars. I don't ask. None of my business."

"You've never seen them before?"

"Never." al-Farouhk put a hand over his heart, eyes wide with innocence.

_Right_. Don pulled out his cell, watching al-Farouhk like a hawk. "LAPD? Special Agent Don Eppes, FBI. Put me through to Captain Gomez. Ray? Don Eppes here. Listen, I need to borrow one of your guys, nothing too hefty. You can send a rookie to handle this. I just need to make sure that a fine, upstanding businessman in the car rental business doesn't make a call that he's not supposed to. Don't need to shut down his business, just keep an eye on him for an hour or two. For his own protection, of course." Don winked at al-Farouhk. "Mr. al-Farouhk just identified some possible suspects for us, and we'd like to be certain that no harm comes of it with to Mr. al-Farouhk or to anyone else. Can you arrange it? Thanks, Ray. I owe you one." Don snapped the phone shut. He smiled, teeth showing. "We'll wait right here, Mr. al-Farouhk, until the nice man from LAPD gets here, just in case those two men that rented the sedan show up here again. After all, they may be dangerous criminals. We wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."

"I couldn't put you to any such trouble—"

"No trouble at all," Don assured him, the smile fixed and vicious on his face. He opened his cell phone once more, pushed a speed dial. "David? We have a lead." He paused. "A flak jacket type lead. Be prepared."

* * *

It came: the dreaded hand upon the door knob. It was the sound that Charlie had been waiting for, the noise that he both anticipated and feared. It meant that time was up. It meant that one of the figures in the three photos tacked on the wall leering down at him would be the target of these terrorists that held him captive, forcing him to decipher the code that would tell them where a stash of enriched uranium had been hidden. It meant that unless Charlie told the terrorists where the stash was, one of those three people, one of those people that he loved, would die. 

And Charlie wasn't ready. He hadn't deciphered the message. Not all of it. He'd gotten through a good chunk of it, but not enough to bluff it through. Not yet.

It was a damn tough code. Charlie had designed it that way, had incorporated both the Heidinger Principle as well as the Foramen Theorem into the weave which had made the coding astonishingly flexible yet almost impossible to break without the key. Given the key, any half-competent staff worker could decipher it in a matter of hours. Without it? Charlie hadn't been kidding with Don when he said that it would take weeks.

Weeks that Charlie didn't have.

So he took short cuts. The short cuts were down and dirty and relied more on guess work than math, and drew on Charlie's own memories of working with Take Ames back when Charlie was a full time consultant with the NSA. But it still took too long.

There was no doubt in Charlie's mind: when they had the uranium, these men would kill him. It was the way they worked. He had heard the stories from Rob Derrick and others sitting around coffee and brandy late at night. The stuff he'd heard from Don pretty much confirmed those stories.

All right: Charlie was a dead man. _Work from there_. Charlie took a deep breath. _Once you accept that as a postulate, the equation becomes less difficult to solve_. Hoping that Don and his team would arrive to bail him out wasn't realistic, not under these circumstances. His brother was good, but these men had left no clues for him to follow. Therefore the new primary desired outcome, the outcome that was achievable, was that these terrorists not acquire the uranium. The secondary desired outcome was that the terrorists not harm either Amita, Larry, or his father. Or anyone else, for that matter, but that too was a postulate. Those outcomes were achievable, with only a little more time.

Time which he didn't have. The door knob turned.

* * *

Don's cell buzzed at him. _Damn. Forgot to turn it off_. He couldn't have it distracting him in the middle of taking these terrorists down. They had the address, it was just a matter of suiting up, surrounding the place, and busting in with a warrant. They were almost ready to roll. He could let voicemail get the caller's message. But, automatically, he glanced at the cell screen to see if he knew the caller. To see if it was important. 

It was his father. Guilt stabbed through Don; Alan Eppes was nearly frantic over Charlie's disappearance, wanting to help, wanting to go look, both understanding and resenting the request to stand by the home phone in case Charlie called in. His father, not able to stand the suspense, was calling for an update. Don grimaced. He owed his father that much. And what if—miracle of miracles—his father had heard from Charlie? That could change this whole operation. The four of them, already buckled into flak jackets, could take off those jackets and go and collect a certain mathematician and pump him clean of whatever had happened.

Don flipped open the cell. "Dad?" _Hoping. Praying_.

"You heard anything, Donnie?"

_Damn. Nothing_. "We've got a lead, Dad," Don admitted. _Not going to tell you how slim it is._ "Has Charlie called in?" _Maybe, perhaps, it would really be nice?_

"No." The volume of misery in his father's voice told Don just how much this was wearing on the older man. Alan Eppes had come to terms with his eldest son's choice of careers and the hazards that it posed but Charlie had always been the younger son, the one who needed special handling. That handling had included splitting the family in two on both sides of the country for years, but it was still ingrained in them all: protect Charlie from real life so that he could produce intellectual miracles for the good of the entire world. Maybe that wasn't fair to Charlie either, to keep thinking of him as something both less and more than adult, but the habits of a lifetime were hard to break. For both of the older Eppes men. Maybe all three of them.

The heavy sigh wasn't diminished by distance. "I haven't heard anything," his father told him. Another sigh, coming to terms with the situation. "Donnie, I appreciate the man you stationed outside. You can tell him that it's okay to come in for coffee. The waiting is hard. He shouldn't have to stay out in the cold." Despite the fact that it was a balmy autumn afternoon warm enough to qualify as summer.

Red flags went up. "Dad, _what_ man outside?"

"There's a man in a car almost a block away. He's been there for a couple of hours. I assumed that you assigned him—"

"Doors locked?" Don snapped out, waving frantically at his team. They gathered around, faces reflecting their concern, ready to run at their team leader's signal. _Aren't we lucky that we already have our flak jackets on?_

"Locking them right now." Alan Eppes didn't need to be told twice. "He's alone, Donnie, sitting in a little silver compact, not looking this way. I gather that he's not one of yours."

"Dad, get away from the windows. Better yet, close the blinds." Don was already on his way out the door, the others crowding behind. "Don't let him see you."

"I can almost make out the license plate," his father continued. "It looks like California plates. I think the second digit is a two."

"Dad! Get away from the window!" Don felt like screaming at his father. Didn't the man understand the danger? Don took a deep breath. "Dad, listen to me. Step away from the window. Do not, under any circumstances, let that man see you. Stand to the side as you close the blinds."

"They're already closed, Donnie. I can't see the license plate now," his father complained.

"That's okay, Dad. We'll look at it as soon as we get there. I'm going to stay on the line with you until then. Please do as I say, Dad," he begged. "Listen, I'm going to turn the phone over to Megan so I can drive." _And not scream at you_, he added mentally. "Megan, it's my father. And there's a man stationed outside the house."

"Got it." Megan knew the implications of that as well as Don did. "Mr. Eppes? It's Megan. You're away from the window, right? We're coming; we'll be there in just a couple of minutes. Don't do anything."

"What if he decides to come in? I won't see him coming."

"You'll hear him," Megan promised. "Don't let him in, and don't answer the door. If he does come to the door, we'll hit the sirens and be there in seconds. You just listen for him, and keep talking to me."

_We'll do the praying on this end_.

* * *

Scarface was the first to enter the room, followed by one of the others. Charlie could identify them now, not by name but by features. Yet another indication that they didn't intend for him to live after deciphering the code. Terrorists wouldn't want to be identified, and killing a certain mathematician would go a long way toward making absolutely sure that an identification wouldn't happen. Charlie tried not to show any reaction. Where were the other two? 

Scarface noted the tremor in Charlie's hand. "Finished cracking the code, Professor Eppes?" he asked in an emotionless voice. To the terrorist, it was all business. Charlie was a tool to be used.

"I—I just need a little more time," Charlie stammered. "Please, just another hour or so. I almost have it."

"Time's up." Yet another tool for Scarface. His original tool—Charlie—was not performing up to specifications. It was time to tweak the tool, make it more efficient.

His partner set up a laptop beside the one that Charlie had been using. The biggest difference, Charlie noticed right away, was that this model had internet capabilities. In fact, the man was setting up a link right now. One that included a webcam. One that was showing an ongoing scene in real time.

The scene, Charlie recognized immediately, was the quadrangle at CalSci. It was bright and sunny outside—Charlie couldn't tell while being locked inside with windows boarded shut—and looked to be shortly after the noon hour. There were a couple of groupings of students sitting on the grass, most nursing bottles of water with heads bent over textbooks. Several more were taking advantage of their own laptops with battery packs to pound away at obligatory freshman English papers. It was enough to make him homesick.

The distant cameraman dollied in toward the library. A man was mounting the steps, headed in toward the massive white building. The camera almost wasn't powerful enough to traverse the distance, but the figure was clear enough for Charlie to guess at his identity: Dr. Larry Fleinhardt.

It wasn't hard to guess what the message was.

"Don't!" Charlie cried out. "Don't do this! I'm working as fast as I can!"

"Have you decoded the message yet, Dr. Eppes?"

"Not yet! Not yet! Please, wait just a little bit longer! I'm working as fast—"

_Crack!_

It wasn't a particularly loud sound. Charlie had heard guns with silencers before, working with Don. There was just a hint of a puff of smoke at the corner of the computer screen, suggesting that the shooter was located just beside the camera, but the sound was muffled.

Anyone watching and unaware of what was going on would have seen Dr. Fleinhardt stagger and fall. The students on the quadrangle would have assumed that the professor, busy with his thoughts, had failed to anticipate the next step in the tall stack of stairs leading to the library, and had tripped. That his failure to rise and brush himself off immediately following the unfortunate accident indicated that perhaps he had hit his head on the afore-mentioned concrete steps, stunning himself. The more self-serving of those students in Dr. Fleinhardt's basic Physics for Pharmers course (required for graduation by those in non-science related majors) jumped up to assist the man, clearly hoping that physical assistance would be allowed to stand in for an 'A' on an exam. Charlie even recognized one of those students as one who'd squeaked by in his own freshman calc course with a 'C'.

All else faded into nothingness. Larry lay at the bottom of the steps, not moving. The camera was too far away to tell if the man was breathing, or if he was bleeding, or anything else but—

The picture turned black.

Scarface grabbed Charlie by the arm, shaking him. The sudden movement caused Charlie's ribs to grate against each other, shocking him back into the present. "You—you killed him—"

"Yes!" Scarface hissed, his face two inches from Charlie's, his breath reeking of garlic. "You have six hours, professor, before another one dies!" He slammed Charlie to the floor. Charlie curled up on himself, clutching at his ribs. Blackness watered in front of him.

Scarface didn't care. He ripped Larry's photo from the wall, tearing it into shreds and dropping those pieces of paper like rain onto Charlie. "Six hours!" he snarled. "No more!"

_Six hours_.

_Not enough time_.

* * *

"No time," Don snarled into his cell. "You in position?" 

"On your signal, boss." There was no humor in Colby's voice.

"Go."

Both vehicles leapt out of hiding around the street corners bracketing the house that Don had grown up in. The silver compact had no chance. Don swerved his Suburban around in front, blocking an exit from that direction and David put his own V-8 sedan behind. The man didn't even have the opportunity to stick the key into the ignition.

He still had legs, and the brain to use them. In a flash, the car door swung open and the man took off like a frightened jackrabbit.

Don automatically took mental notes: five foot ten. One hundred seventy five pounds. Black hair. Light skin, but with even, almost handsome features. Middle Eastern origin, dressed in western jeans and a tee. Slender black beard fringing the jawbone.

"FBI! Freeze!" That came from David, the man already out of his car and brandishing his weapon.

Either the man didn't speak English—unlikely, given the circumstances—or he intended to outrun them. That scenario was much more convincing. "Megan, check out the house!" Don called out. This man had kidnapped his brother, had threatened his father. There was no _way_ that he was escaping. Don called on the speed that had been the envy of several of his teammates in the minor leagues, hunter-vision narrowing to the one fleeing figure.

The man turned around, saw Don in hot pursuit, and doubled his pace. _Not in this lifetime, scum!_ Don put on yet another burst of speed, leaving the ground in a flying tackle. He took the man to the ground, rolled into the dirt. The concrete hit hard, didn't matter.

The man spewed something coarse in a language that Don didn't understand but could guess at the content. Unimportant; Don blocked the first blow, and his return jab was more than a little love tap. He felt something break under his knuckles; a rib no doubt. _Good_. Don wanted answers, and he wanted them fast, and he wanted them now. Let this goon squirm.

The man tried once more, this time kicking out to try to remove Don's head from his shoulders. Don was ready. A grab, a snatch at the ankle with a ferocious twist, and the man collapsed to the ground with a grunt that suggested that walking was no longer a reality and wouldn't be until after a bit of surgery. Don pounced on him, wrenching the man's arm behind him and shoving his face into the dirt.

"Where is he?" Don snarled.

"Who?"

Don applied pressure to the arm. "You damn well know who!"

The man shrieked. "I don't know! I don't know! I want a lawyer!"

More pressure. Another shriek.

"Don!" Colby pulled him away. "Don, back off!"

"He—" Don caught himself. It wouldn't do any good to let this man go free on a technicality. Not that it was likely to happen; too many points against him, in a country terrified against a repeat of 9/11.

But they needed information. They needed to know what the code said. They needed to know where the nuclear material was. They needed to know where Charlie was.

"My father?" Don asked harshly.

"Safe, inside. Megan's with him. He's okay, Don."

"Good." One civilian safe. One member of his family unhurt. "I want a bodyguard with my father at all times." Don pushed his way to the suspect, shoving his face close. "Where is he?"

Spate of curses, in an unknown tongue.

Not really unknown. David moved closer to Don, getting in the suspect's line of sight. "Talking about your own mother? Street-walker, right?" David added something vicious, something learned on the streets of Cairo during his military intelligence days.

The suspect snarled, struggled in Colby's grasp. "I tell you nothing! Torture me, I will die a martyr to the cause!"

He would, too. Of that, Don was certain. Don wanted to beat the information out of him, but the rational part of him said _waste of time_. Time that they didn't have to waste.

Don turned away, mastering himself. "Get a Forensics team down here ASAP," he growled. "Tear the car apart. I want to know everything about this man as of now." He clenched his fists, fighting the urge to beat it out of the man.

"Don! Don!" Megan called to him from the house. She rushed across the lawn to meet him.

Don's heart hit the dirt. Not his father? What—?

"Don, it's Larry!"

"Larry?" Too much information to process. What the hell did Larry have to do with this suspect?

"Larry's been shot!" Megan was more upset than Don had ever seen her. "It's LAPD. They're investigating it. The beat cop taking a statement is with him, and Larry's insisting that they talk with us."

"Damn right, they will." Don snatched Megan's cell from her hand. "This is Special Agent Eppes, of the FBI."

The cop identified himself on the other end of the phone. "This guy here a suspect? You want me to cuff 'im?"

"Hardly. He's a consultant." Stretching the point; Larry had never been formally consulted, no contracts drawn up. Inconsequential, at the moment. "What happened? Is he all right?" _Is there a two-for-one sale on murdering geniuses going on?_ More important: did the terrorists realize that Larry Fleinhardt was helping to decipher the coded message?

"He's going to be," the cop reported. "Took one in the arm, cracked his skull pretty good on some concrete steps. Doc's are keeping him overnight."

"What happened?"

"Give me that!" Don heard Larry's voice in the background, querulous and thin. "Don, this is Larry." _As if it could be someone else_. "Don, I insisted that they call you. Don, I've been shot!"

"Are you all right?"

"No, I am _not_ all right! Didn't you hear me? I was _shot!_ The sniper positioned himself in the Snailor Building, on the third floor, facing the quadrangle."

"You saw him?"

"No, of _course_ I didn't see him. Had I _seen_ him, I would have taken steps so that I would not be in this situation! Ballistics science clearly indicates—"

_Wrench_. Fight over possession of the phone in the hospital; point to the beat cop. "We've got a Forensics Team on the way, Special Agent Eppes," the cop said.

_Wrench_. "The suspect departed the scene, Don. I saw a man fleeing the Snailor from the side exit. He got into a car and left, taking the northern route to the main road outside of campus."

_Wrench_. "We're questioning students right now. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything."

_Wrench_. "Of_ course_ no one heard anything. He used a silencer. _I_ saw him! The car was—"

_Wrench_. "We're checking with University Security, seeing if they have any tapes of the parking lot—"

_Wrench_. "Security doesn't use tapes! Don, the car was a ninety-nine Oldsmo—"

_Wrench_. "They're taking him to surgery," the cop reported, unable to contain the relief in his voice that he felt and Don didn't. Don could hear Larry in the background, demanding to be given the phone, his demands unheeded and diminishing with distance. "Captain says our Forensics people—"

"Call 'em off," Don instructed. "This is a Federal case. My people will be out in a few minutes." He waved at David who was listening in. David took the hint, calling it in. Don nodded at Megan, even though the cop on the other end couldn't see the gesture. "My people will take the statement from the victim."

"Thank you." That was heartfelt from the cop. "He wouldn't stop talking."

Don hung up the phone. _Talking is what you _want_ people to do_.

He stopped, dead in his tracks, thinking. A cold feeling settled into the pit of his stomach once again as pieces started to come together.

Charlie, kidnapped because he could decipher an undecipherable code. Given all of this, Don was unwilling to accept the NSA's contention that the CIA was the culprit. Possible, sure. But likely? Don ascribed to the KISS principle: _keep it simple, stupid_. Don and Megan had been shot at—twice!—but the second time Charlie was present. What if the shooters weren't after Don or Megan but something else? What else had been present during both those episodes?

Don already knew the answer to his own question: the code, in an undecipherable paper form. It wouldn't do anyone any good to have a code expert if they didn't have the code to begin with. That let out both the NSA and the CIA; Don had sent them copies early on in the case. Both agencies had their own experts working on it, trying to figure out what it meant. Both wanted Charlie's expertise, but, given enough time, they could do without him.

So who needed the original code and someone to decode it? There were a number of terrorist cells in the area, all groups that the FBI were keeping under routine surveillance but Don wasn't about to swear that his agency knew about all of them. Splinter groups were always budding off and dying out like amoebas. One of those groups could have known that Ned Ames was here, could have been the culprit and tried to get the key. The key wouldn't have done any good without the message, and, according to Gatsbacher in Forensics, the key was half-demolished. Hence the need for an expert code-breaker.

But why shoot Larry? Why have someone watching Don's father? No, that wasn't the right question to ask. What Don ought to be asking was: why have someone watching _Charlie's_ father?

Answer: because Alan Eppes was _Charlie's_ father. A lever, to force Charlie to do something that he wouldn't want to do. The same went for Larry: _look what we do to the friends of people who don't cooperate_. A very clear message to a very stubborn math genius.

Don didn't like the way his thoughts were going. There was another person that he needed to worry about, someone who was actually working on the cipher. He flipped open his cell, searched for a number that he hoped was there. Yes, there it was. He pushed the speed dial.

"Hello?"

"Amita! Are you all right?" Rush of relief.

"Don!" It was almost a wail. "I was just about to call you."

"Are you all right?" Don demanded, suddenly scared. Had she too been attacked? "Where are you? I'll send out someone—"

"No, I'm all right, but it's the computer!"

"The computer? You're okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Amita sounded frustrated with a heavy layer of despair. "Don, the computer got wiped! Someone must have wiped it while I stepped out, right after I talked with that guy that you sent over. Don, all the work that I did is gone! I'll never be able to decode the message in time!"

"What are you talking about? What guy?" Confusion was uppermost, but only because Don didn't want to be right. "Amita, did you talk to someone claiming to be from the FBI?"

"Well, yeah." Pause. "Didn't you send him, Don? He said that you did."

The only reason that panic wasn't called for was that Amita was all right, talking on the phone. "No, I didn't send anyone," Don said grimly. He snapped his fingers, got Colby's attention, and mouthed silently: _get someone over to Amita now!_ The younger agent nodded, flipped open his own cell. Don continued, to be on the safe side, "is he there now, Amita?"

"No. He left about half an hour ago. Why?"

Don ignored the question. "Where are you?"

"Charlie's office. Don—"

"Stay right there," Don ordered. "I'm sending someone over to get you."

"Get me? Why, Don?"

"Because people who try to work with Charlie's code are getting grabbed and hurt by Middle Eastern terrorists," Don told her. "I don't want you to be next."

"Oh. It's okay, then. This guy wasn't Middle Eastern. He had blue eyes, I think; maybe green. And really light skin. Not mid-eastern."

"What? Are you sure? Not from the mid-east?"

"Don, I'm sure. Light brown hair, light eyes, light skin. I don't remember how old he looked."

"What was his name?"

Puzzlement. "You know, I'm not sure? He gave it to me; he must have. I think."

More clues, and none of them fitting together. But first, he needed to make sure that Amita stayed safe. "Are you anywhere near other people?"

"I think Professor Langston is next door."

"Go there," Don ordered. "I don't want you to be alone. Humor me," he added, before she could object that Langston was a dirty old man who tried to grope the co-eds and wouldn't stop at groping an attractive younger colleague verbally if not physically. "I don't understand what is going on, and I don't want you to take chances. _Go_. When my people get there, ask for ID and then call me back to make sure that those are the ones we expect to be there. You're the only one around working on the code, Amita," he told her. "Like I said: stay safe."

But who the hell was it that scoped out Amita and wiped her computer? More to the point: why?


	8. Cipher 8

_Dead_.

Colby dead, gone in a rain of bullets sprayed through the windshield of his car.

Larry, dead, victim of a sniper's well-placed bullet. Charlie morosely wondered how long it would take for people to realize that it was a bullet and not a simple misstep. If he had still been alive, Larry would have been irate over bystanders' inability to clearly observe what had occurred in front of them. _Precision_, he would say. _That is paramount to good science. How can you accurately portray the heavens if you cannot accurately describe what you see?_

And soon Charlie himself would be dead. He idly wondered how the terrorists would do it. A simple bullet to the back of the head? Maybe a knife? Whatever it would be, Charlie hoped it would be painless. When it came right down to it, he decided, he really wasn't all that brave. Not that he had any choice over the matter.

Even looking over what he was doing, he still couldn't acknowledge any bravery on his part. Charlie was a dead man walking, therefore his actions now didn't reflect heroism. Just simple logic. Save whoever could be saved. Charlie couldn't be saved. But perhaps he could save Amita, and his father, and the rest of the people who would be killed in a nuclear explosion here in the L.A. basin. And maybe even a bunch of other nameless, faceless people who would get caught up in the inevitable fallout, as well as the rest of the world trying to avoid World War III.

_My, aren't we being grandiose? Preventing WWW III_. Charlie snorted. _Better settle for just Amita and Dad._

He was ready. This time, as Scarface walked in, there were no histrionics, no pleading for people's lives. Just a calmness that accepted whatever the rest of his short life would bring.

"You have decoded the message?"

"It's here." Charlie indicated the computer. Words, in English, decorated the screen.

Scarface looked at the message, noting the location of the nuclear material. "Good. Shut it off." He flipped open his cell. "Abdu? You have her in your sights?" Glance at Charlie. The mathematician kept his face stolid. "Keep watching her. If you do not hear from me in two hours, kill her. Understand?" He shut the phone down. "You will come with me, professor. If you are lying, the woman will die."

* * *

"Clean," Colby reported grimly. "The suspect's car outside your dad's place was stripped of anything resembling a clue. I mean, outside Charlie's place. Whatever. There was nothing there to lead us anywhere." He frowned, well aware of what that meant. "Maybe Forensics'll come up with something, with a little more time."

"We don't have a little more time." Despair had been nibbling around Don's edges. Now it was crashing in with all the delicacy of a tidal wave. "Megan called in from the hospital. Larry is still babbling under anesthesia, and David says that they located the sniper's nest in the Snailor Building right where Larry predicted it would be. Score one for the physics professor." The humor fell flat. "Amita can't identify the guy who talked to her and wiped her computer. There's nothing that will lead us to the terrorists." _And Charlie_, he wanted to cry out.

"Try calling that NSA guy," Colby suggested. "Maybe they've come up with something. Maybe they've cracked the code."

"Maybe." Don was willing to try anything. Then—"Wait."

"Don?"

There was one more lead, a lead that they hadn't followed up yet. A lead that they had been heading for when they'd gotten side-tracked by his father's phone call. "Get everyone together, Colby," Don directed coldly. "There's one more thing to try."

"Don?"

"Get everyone together. We never checked out the address of the car rental guy."

* * *

The place looked totally unremarkable, just exactly what Don would have expected from a cell of terrorists trying to remain unnoticed. It was a small house with the grass neatly trimmed but the weeding not yet gotten to. There were no cars in the drive but the mail had been taken in. It looked like a place where someone lived and was, in general, too busy to keep up with. In other words: normal. Certainly nothing like a grungy warehouse hide-out for desperate criminals.

At least from the front. David called in from the back: "One of the windows is boarded over from the outside, Don. Recent job, fast and sloppy. I can't see in."

_Very_ suspicious. "No chances, David."

"I can't hear anything either, Don. I don't think anyone's home."

"Damn," Don breathed. It wasn't what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear the sound of his brother's voice, wanted evidence that this was the cell of terrorists and that he would have the legal right to smash the door down and apprehend every single one of them that didn't resist arrest. A scream for help would warrant breaking in the door. Without it? A warrant would take hours, maybe days.

He didn't have days. Don came to a career-wrecking decision. "You didn't see this, Megan," he said quietly. He reached into his pocket for a set of small tools and went for the lock on the door.

Megan stared him in the eye. "You're right, Don. I didn't see anything." When Don was finished, she stopped him with a gentle hand on his wrist. "Oh, look." Deadpan. "Someone left the door unlocked. How lucky for us."

"Yeah."

Megan wasn't finished. "I think I heard something in the back. Someone calling for help, perhaps?"

Don grunted. He had a good team. "I think I heard it, too. A sound like that, we're legally obligated to investigate. Since two of us heard it. I hope we're not mistaken. That it was actually a cat somewhere in the neighborhood instead of the kidnap victim that we're looking for." He pushed open the door.

The place was empty but not entirely unlived-in. There were a couple of large pillows on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, but nothing more: no chairs, no tables, no lamps. The place looked lived in from the outside, but 'lived-in' on the inside had an entirely different meaning for the inhabitants. It was a place to crash while waiting for something else. This was a temporary abode, furnished in Early Modern Cheap.

"Don," David called, "in here."

It was the back bedroom, the one with the window boarded up that David had reported. It was almost as empty as the other rooms, except for a small table and a single folding chair. The table held a laptop plugged into the wall.

"Over here." Colby pointed to a dark spot in the corner. He sniffed, rubbing his finger. "Wet. I think it's blood." _Charlie's blood_, hung ominously in the air. "Not too much of it." _He may still be alive_.

"Forensics," Don said, keeping his emotions in check. He didn't even have to order it; Colby knew to call without being told. "They can dust the keyboard for prints."

"They may have kept him here, making him work on the code," David offered.

"In which case, since they've left, they probably got the results out of him." Don squashed the man's hopes.

Not Megan's. "There's no body left behind," she pointed out. "That means that they still have him. They're keeping him around for something." _There's still hope, Don_.

But David grabbed onto something else. "Don…the computer's hibernating."

"What?"

"Hibernating." David jiggled the mouse, clicked at it. Something inside whirred. "It was never shut down all the way. You think Charlie left us a message?"

He ought to have made David leave the keyboard alone, waited for Forensics to come and dust for prints. Not a chance: the computer screen lit up, and a message started wiggling its way across the panel like a banner, electronic candles sending up silent fireworks.

"Happy Birthday, Don," Colby read. "Don, is this some sort of sick joke? Were the terrorists expecting you to find this dump?"

"Not the terrorists." Don tried not to feel hopeful. He'd had too many hopes dashed today. "And it's not my birthday," he acknowledged. But this was clearly a clue. A message from Charlie? He tapped a key on the keyboard.

The computer responded by asking for a password.

"It's gonna take three days to figure out what the password is to this laptop," Colby moaned. "I can really learn to hate codes."

"No, it isn't." Don was never so certain of anything in his life. He tapped in the digits to his birthday into the waiting box, then pressed the enter key. The screen dissolved into darkness for several long moments. Then words popped up, bold and white against the black screen. "Got it!"

_Don, if you're reading this, then perhaps it isn't too late. The location of where the enriched uranium is hidden is at the bottom of this message. I'm going to assume that my kidnappers are on their way there. Hopefully they haven't killed me yet. Even if they have, don't worry. They won't live to harm anyone else. _

_The story: one of their own people got greedy and stole the uranium from the rest, hoping to sell it to the highest bidder. The highest bidder, in this case, turned out to be a mole connected with the CIA who was trying to recover the uranium instead of allowing it to be blown up. Instructions on how to find the cache were encoded by Ned Ames at the request of the thief, which is how Ned—and I—got involved. Ned went stateside to try and warn the proper people. Because it was a CIA mole, Ned wasn't certain who he could trust, and it got even more twisty from there._

_There's a kicker, and it's a big one: the thief also set up a booby trap to protect the uranium from being stolen back from him, a standard little bomb with just enough firepower to effectively kill off anyone trying to recover the uranium who isn't supposed to, or, at least, that's what the code says.. The instructions on how to defuse the bomb are also included in the message as Ned wrote them, and I've added them below the location. If you don't get this message in time, and I suspect that you won't, don't worry. The terrorists don't know about the bomb. That's the one thing I didn't decode for them. Only for you._

_Tell Dad I love him. Charlie._

There was a location, and a blueprint for a bomb, just as Charlie had promised.

"Start copying this down," Don demanded harshly, "and fast. There's no printer to print it out on."

"Got it." Colby sketched the details of the bomb within a few lines. "Not a bad one, Don. I can handle it if I have to. No fail-safes. It's your basic, trigger it off blow 'em up type of bomb."

"The address is out in the desert," Megan said. "It's a few hours from here. If we can hurry, we might be able to get there first."

"A chopper," Don decided. "They have to take the highways, and it'll be rush hour soon." He looked around at his team. There wasn't much time. "Let's move."


	9. Cipher 9

It was hot, Charlie decided. The desert sun had beaten the sand into submission, and now the sequestered heat was beginning to rise again from the silt to bake him and the others from both above and below. A lone saguaro cactus stood off in the distance like a sentinel, not even a single roadrunner to keep it company. Everything sensible had taken refuge underground in the dirt or inside with air-conditioning.

'_Tis a far, far better thing that I do_. Who wrote that? Charlie wondered. Dickens? Chaucer? As good as he was in math, Charlie had struggled with English, and had rejoiced when he discovered spell check. _No matter; it fits_. For there was no sign of Don, no white knight on a steed coming to his rescue, no cavalry coming over the sand dunes. There was only Scarface and his two buddies, escorting the reluctant Dr. Eppes to the location that he'd identified. What happened to terrorist number four? Charlie couldn't remember seeing him, wondered if the man had been sent to decide on an appropriate spot to set up a nuclear explosion. L.A. really didn't have much that would affect the rest of the country. Even a good deal of the locals, stoned on pot, would just watch and say, "whoa, duuude." Others would exclaim, "Dios mio". And those of the tree-hugging persuasion would start plans for a protest over the quantity of additional smog that had just been generated and added to the semi-breathable air. Didn't anybody care about radioactivity? Larry would. _Would have_, Charlie corrected himself. _Gotta use the correct tense, make Larry proud of me when I next see him in the afterlife. It will be soon, my friend._

Charlie wouldn't be around to hear those environmental protests. With luck, the end would be quick. He hadn't a clue how big the booby trap would be, but he was going to do his best to make certain that all three of the terrorists were caught in the blast. And if that meant that the world would have to be satisfied with the Eppes Convergence as the major overt example of Charlie's work, then so be it. There would be a few heads somewhere who knew that another contribution was the removal of a nuclear threat. That would have to do, given the circumstances. _I hope they let Dad know that. It would be nice._

Scarface dragged him out of the car, hands tied behind him, keeping a warning hand on his arm so that Charlie couldn't run away. Scarface looked around. "Over beyond that sand dune," he decided. "We're looking for a cave that the uranium is in. Something with a gate or a door. Abdu, go ahead of us."

It wasn't far off of the road. Scarface tugged at Charlie, seeming to delight in tripping him so that Charlie ended up on the desert floor with a mouthful of sand. _Keep it up, scum. We'll see who has the last laugh._

"Over here," Abdu called.

The entrance was an old mine shaft. There had been a little bit of silver mined around here, Charlie remembered, but more likely it was boron. He couldn't remember why people mined boron, only that it had been done and somehow benefited those doing both the mining and the end usage. This, he supposed, was one of those old mines.

The door to the mine had been opened fairly recently. There were bright silver marks on the lock where someone had scraped at it, and the sage brush that had been artistically piled against the opening to make it look old was swept away with a kick. There were some footprints too, almost hidden with sand poured over it by the desert winds. It was a place that the ordinary person wouldn't look at twice should they happen upon it, but no one would 'happen' upon it. It was a good mile from the road. A military jet soared overhead, on its way, no doubt, to one of the air bases located outside of L.A. If he'd been able to flash a mirror, Charlie thought, the jet would have missed it. Stuff like that only happens in fiction.

It was going to be very irritating to die right now, Charlie decided. There were still things that he had left to do in life. The Cognitive Emergence theory, for one. And, despite what people thought, Charlie was certain that he could make a little more headway on PnP if only he could get past the obsessive-compulsive part. And third, but not least, was the rest of the code that the terrorists wanted. There was another section that Charlie hadn't gotten to, something dealing with the retrieval of the enriched uranium. It had been left undone in favor of creating the message to Don—_wonder if he'll get it in time? I hope so. I _have _to believe that he will, for the sake of people's lives_—but leaving a problem unsolved was, for Charlie, annoying in the extreme.

End of the road. Charlie stumbled inside the mine entrance, helped by a push from Scarface, banging his broken rib painfully against the side wall before crashing to the mine floor. Scarface kicked him and hauled him back to his feet. "I do not need you any longer, professor. Do not tempt me to kill you here and now."

_That's a threat? Sounds like a better option than the one I have planned for you_.

* * *

"There!" Colby was the first to catch sight of the car.

Don swung his binoculars around, zeroing in on the vehicle. It looked abandoned, but Don knew better. It wasn't abandoned, merely left there to wait. There wasn't anyone around. "Down!" he yelled at the pilot over the sound of the chopper blades above, pumping his hand toward the ground.

The chopper was loud, but it couldn't be helped. According to Charlie's instructions, the mine entrance was a good mile from the road, slogging over desert sand. Don shoved the shades more firmly on his nose, wishing that there had been time to grab some sunscreen. They'd bake out here in no time flat.

Of course, a nuclear explosion would do a great deal more damage than a sunburn. Don had taken a call from Area Director D'Angelo en route, and the priorities had been very clear.

"I realize he's your brother, Eppes." It was tough to hear over the chopper noise, but that statement came through loud and clear. "I've got a platoon of agents on the way out there right now but they won't arrive at your location for another hour. Can you keep it together? I can temporarily assign Sinclair to call the shots. First priority: the enriched uranium. Washington is panicking."

"I can keep it together, sir." _I hope. I keep remembering all the trouble I got into for pounding that bully when I was ten. The bully deserved it, and these terrorists deserve whatever I can give to them. Charlie didn't deserve the black eye that he got back then_.

"All right." Don could hear the doubt in D'Angelo's tones. "Let me talk to Sinclair."

Don handed the headset to David.

"Uh-huh. Yes, sir. I will, sir. No, it won't be a problem for him, sir. I have every confidence—thank you, sir." David handed the headset back to Don to hang up.

Don arched his eyebrows.

David grimaced. "I'm legally required to shoot you in the back if it will save the country," he told Don. "Don't make me do it."

"Rather not."

It was all the conversation they had time for. The chopper swung low, let them jump the last five feet instead of landing, taking off for a high altitude survey.

"Chopper One," the pilot called through the radio. "Your bogies are at north by north east, estimate just over a mile. I see one person only; repeat: one person with what looks like an M-16."

"Roger that." Don didn't believe that there was only one person there. Charlie's location had included a mine, and there was a very good chance that the rest of the terrorists were inside with Charlie with a bomb set to go boom. That in itself was a good reason to hurry. "Let's boogie, people. They're already inside, and we've got a party to crash."

* * *

Scarface kept dragging Charlie along, deeper and deeper into the cave, until the air actually began to cool. It was little enough, but Charlie was grateful. The flashlight that Scarface and the other man carried put erratic shadows onto the rough-hewn walls, little crystalline twinkles glittering here and there.

Not too much further, Charlie estimated. There wouldn't be much warning, if Ned's message was to be believed. There was a trigger point low to the ground, a spot where it would be difficult to see unless one was looking for it. The detonator would be triggered, it would delay for a couple of minutes to be sure that the unwitting victims would be further and deeper into the mine and then: boom.

Certainly his captors weren't looking for booby traps. The flashlights were shining a good deal higher, illuminating the ceiling so that the pair didn't crack their skulls against low hanging rocks. Charlie they didn't care about, and the mathematician was already crouched over, trying to splint his rib. Keeping his feet was a priority for him, but if it helped him watch for the ground level trigger…

"Keep up," Scarface snarled, back-handing Charlie ferociously. The mathematician crumbled against the wall, cracking his head and his rib cage all at once. Agony flared through him; he never knew he was falling or even that he'd hit the ground until the rocks strewn on the floor dug into his back. A kick followed, driving his breath from him.

"Get up," Scarface yelled. He drew back his leg to kick again.

Abdu stopped him. "Leave him. He's not going anywhere, certainly not with Rashid outside. He's holding us back. Leave him. We can move faster."

_Yeah. Leave me. I won't mind. Won't feel slighted in the least_. Charlie kept his eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness until the fading noise of footsteps convinced him that they were far enough away not to come back after him. Then he started painfully crawling toward the exit. _Don't expect to get out of here, not with good ol' Rashid standing guard. Don't expect to go anywhere once the cave goes boom. But I would like to avoid getting kicked any more._

He opened his eyes once he bumped up against something hard and painful. A small wired box was what stopped him.

Charlie had admittedly not seen many bombs in his day, but this looked remarkably like something that had been carefully set into this spot not too long ago. Say, a week or so, just when Ned's acquaintance would have been smuggling the uranium into this country. It also looked as though a trip wire had been broken through.

Charlie was not one given to cursing. It seemed a totally inadequate method for dealing with life's little disappointments, and never seemed to solve anything. But, under the circumstances with only another minute or two left in his life, Charlie decided to give it yet another try.

"_Shit._"

* * *

There was a guard outside the mine entrance. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was the location of the enriched uranium. It was distant and alone, and the perfect spot for someone to hide the radioactive material. No one would come here unless they had a definite purpose in mind.

But first they had to get past the guard.

"They got here first," Colby whispered, keeping his voice down so that the guard couldn't hear. "They must be inside."

"Which means we don't have much time," Don whispered back. "They could set off the booby trap at any moment. How do we get to them?"

"Talk to the man outside," Megan suggested. "We've got him out-numbered even before our reinforcements get here. They have the enriched uranium, but it's not a bomb. Not yet. It won't do them any good in this state. We've got them cornered with no way out."

"And they've got Charlie as a hostage," Don reminded her.

"Which means that we're no worse off than we were before," David said. "Remember what D'Angelo said, Don: the uranium is our first priority." He took a deep breath. "Even over Charlie." He set his jaw. "I don't like it any better than you do, Don, but we can't let them get away with the uranium. We have to pen them in; we can keep them there as long as necessary, even if they threaten Charlie's life. Either you talk that guard down, or I will."

Don stared at David, dislike plain on his face. It see-sawed either way for several long minutes. David was almost ready to take over when—

"All right." Don unlimbered the rifle he'd brought along. "Spread out. Surround the mine entrance. Colby, you're the sniper. Pick your spot."

"There." Colby pointed to a place among the rocks. Good cover, good height; Don approved. Colby would be able to nail anyone fleeing the site and had the marksmanship to do it.

"Right. Megan, take the north end. David, the south. _I _want to _try_ to talk these guys out," he said, challenging David to disagree with the decision. "They don't know that they're sitting on top of a bomb. We can still get Charlie out."

"Go for it." David declined to argue. "Get him out, Don. I'm behind you one hundred percent."

* * *

"You! You there!" Don called out to the man beside the mine entrance.

The reaction was expected: a quick twist to point the M-16 at where Don's voice came from.

But Don was ready for him. Still protected by the rocks, he called out again. "FBI. You're surrounded. Lay down your weapon and surrender peacefully."

Well, he could always hope. Just like he'd always hoped that one day, _some day_, to do better than Charlie on a math exam.

Same results: the terrorist sent off a quick volley to show that he meant business and ducked into the cover of the mine entrance. Don almost envied the terrorist; at least the man was out of the sun. Unlike Don and his team.

"There's no way out," Don called down. "You're surrounded. We can wait you out. But listen, there's something that you need to know: there's a bomb inside—"

Had this been another scenario, Don would have gotten on the public radio to hear just how high the earthquake rated on the Richter scale and where the epicenter was in relationship to L.A. But this was no earthquake. And the epicenter was a few hundred yards away, down a mine shaft.

"Charlie!" The intended shout emerged as a horrified gasp. Clouds of dust billowed out of the mine entrance. The terrorist was knocked to his feet, losing his gun in the process.

Don's team was on it. The terrorist reached for the weapon; Colby put a shot between the gunman and his gun. The man drew back. Megan darted in, handgun raised, and kicked the M-16 away.

"Don't make me shoot you," she warned.

He almost tried it. It was, after all, only a weak woman. But…he looked at the determined light in Megan's eyes and backed down. Paradise and the _hareem_ of women in the afterlife could wait a little while longer for him to join them. He surrendered.

Don and the others closed in. "How many inside?" Don demanded.

"Enough," the man sneered. He laughed as Megan fastened the handcuffs on him, but the sound was hollow. He was finished.

"I'm going in." Don pulled out his pencil flash.

"Don—"

"I said, I'm going in." He stared David Sinclair in the face. "Don't try to stop me, David."

One corner of David's mouth curved upward. "Stop you? Hell, I'm _following_ you. Area Director D'Angelo told me I could shoot you in the back if I had to. Can't do that if you're out of my line of sight now, can I?"

Colby too shrugged. "I'm the closest thing you guys got to a bomb expert. I have to go in with you."

"Colby, the bomb is already gone. It exploded."

"Really? I thought that was an earthquake. I'd better go ahead and make sure."

Don nodded. He had one hell of a good team. "Megan, you stay here. I need someone to keep an eye on this bozo, and I need heavier muscle inside. You okay with that?"

"Bring him out, Don," Megan told him. "I'll wait for the reinforcements."


	10. Cipher 10

Whoever was in charge of Fate, Charlie decided, really had it in for him. Charlie had been all set to go out in a blaze of glory, to set off the bomb and save Western Civilization—or at least a substantial part of the west coast of the United States—and now look at him. Pinned under a rock with no way out. No food, no water. And when Don finally found this cave, assuming that he got the message that Charlie left on the laptop, he'd believe that Charlie had been immediately killed in the explosion that had collapsed the roof of the mine. Not left to die a lingering death of hunger and thirst and generalized boredom in the dark. Not fair. _Dammit_, not fair!

At least the explosion had killed Scarface and Abdu. Of that, he was certain. No one could have survived the mine collapse. Charlie's priority outcome had been accomplished. And the secondary goal too, most likely; there was now no reason for the third terrorist outside to go after his father or Amita; he wondered briefly what had happened to the fourth that he'd seen. Reassigned, perhaps? He'd never know. He hoped that Larry and Colby would understand why Charlie had done this. Colby would, Charlie was certain; the young man had served overseas and knew that death was always a possibility. But Larry? The physicist had had more contributions to make to his chosen field and for taking that away, Charlie feared, Larry would never forgive him.

But at least the terrorists wouldn't trouble anyone ever again—_crap!_

More cursing, more than he'd done in the last three months, all in one day. Charlie felt like he deserved the opportunity. _This isn't supposed to happen to mild-mannered mathematicians, dammit!_

"I kill you!" Scarface hissed.

The terrorist looked dreadful. He wasn't supposed to still be alive. He clutched his flashlight in his hand like a weapon, trying to illuminate his path to freedom, the meager light only serving to add shadows to the blood trickling down his face. One leg no longer functioned; Scarface dragged it painfully behind him.

"I kill you!" Scarface repeated, the insane glow in his eye adding to Charlie's fear. The need to escape from this hellhole had been replaced by a need for revenge for the terrorist. Charlie swallowed down his sudden fear.

_What am I afraid of? I'm going to die here anyway. Wasn't I just hoping for a swifter death? Can't I make up my mind?_

No matter. Instinct took over; Charlie tried to escape. But the huge boulder that had cracked the mine floor just inches from his legs pinned him fast. And with his hands still tied behind him, Charlie was helpless to move.

"I kill you!" Scarface gasped for breath, clearly hurting inside. But anger drove him on. He inched closer to Charlie.

"They're coming for us!" Charlie tried to reason with the madman. "We can get out of here. They're looking for us."

"They will find your dead husk of a corpse, with the crows plucking out your eyeballs!" Scarface vowed with more fury than sanity.

What could Charlie say to that? "There are no crows in here," he croaked. "Let's go outside and find some." _Whatever possessed me to say something as stupid as that?_

"I kill you first, and then I go kill some crows."

_Okay, so he bought it. Timeline is a little off, maybe I can work with that. I'm as crazy as he is_. "Go kill the crows first. I'll wait right here for you to get back."

Scarface dragged himself close. "I kill you!" It was what the terrorist had focused on, what had driven him forward: revenge. "I kill you! They find your dead corpse here with the rocks!" Not all intelligence had left; Scarface hoisted himself across Charlie's ribcage, where the broken rib was, letting his own body weight do the damage. "I crush your lung! You drown in your own blood like the pig dog that you are!"

Charlie tried to call out. No good; he couldn't draw enough breath to shout and the black hole of unconsciousness beckoned. Not that shouting would help—who was there to hear him? _Dammit_, he didn't want to die! Not yet! There was still the Cognitive Emergence work to be done…

"_Well, Charles." Larry perched himself on top of the boulder that pinned Charlie to the mine floor, looking remarkably like an elf about to sit down to a breakfast bowl of Lucky Charms. The physicist calmly observed the terrorist still flailing away at the mathematician. "This is a pretty dilemma. Can you calculate the amount of force required to dislodge that man before your lung is punctured by your fractured rib? Remember to take into account that you are incapable of using either your hands or your feet. Which equation would be appropriate for use in this situation? You must limit yourself to those theorems developed prior to the Twentieth Century, since you were foolish enough to leave your laptop behind in the terrorists' home. Might I suggest the Alchimedes Priniciple?"_

_Charlie looked down at himself. The terrorist still looked ferocious, and Charlie pitied the poor slob he was pounding on. The poor slob, Charlie noted uncomfortably, wasn't putting up a terribly effective defense. "Determining forces is more physics, Larry." He frowned. "Aren't you dead? Didn't I see you die?"_

"_Charles, I have always been One with the Cosmos." Larry tipped the elfin green cap that suddenly appeared in his hand, raised both arms, and levitated himself on a flying carpet. A little twitch of his nose, and he was gone._

"_Larry? Larry, come back. Don't—"_

"_Not to worry, Charlie. I'm here."_

_Charlie whipped around. "Colby?"_

"_In the flesh." Colby looked at himself. "Sort of. Sorry about the mess," he apologized, watching blood leak from the dozens of bullet holes in his chest, delivering rivers of red stuff that trickled off into the bowels of the shattered mine. It didn't appear to affect Colby's ability to speak. "Listen, it's okay. You tried." He leaned over confidentially. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but it's not gonna work. You failed, guy. The whole world's gonna blow up into World War Four. The terrorist outside, and the fourth guy? The guy you haven't seen anymore? They're gonna come back to investigate this place. They're gonna find you, and they're gonna find the uranium and they're gonna blow up New Orleans_ _so that Hurricane Katrina doesn't flood it out again. That'll start World War Five."_

"_But Katrina already happened. And what about World War Three and Four? They come before Five." 'Bewildered' was putting it mildly._

"_Really? New Orleans_ _got taken down by a little girl of a hurricane? Couldn't prove it by me." Colby too faded away._

"_Colby? Colby, don't go! What am I supposed to do? How do I fix this?"_

_Someone else floated into Charlie's field of vision. Someone he remembered very well. Someone he missed very much. "You'll do all right, Charlie. I have confidence in you."_

"_Mom?"

* * *

_

"I kill you! I kill you!"

Charlie didn't hurt anymore; the panic of not being able to breathe was taking over and adrenaline pushed out every sensation except _suffocation_. He writhed underneath the terrorist, the man's gasping anger hot against Charlie's skin. His legs were trapped, his hands tied behind him, and still Charlie struggled to take a breath. He couldn't help himself. Instinct refused to quit. Broken bones stabbed into his side.

"Charlie! Charlie, can you hear me?"

Scarface lifted his head. He heard the intruders. With a growl, he slammed the flashlight into Charlie's face. Stars went nova in Charlie's head. Through the blackness Charlie felt the heavy body crawl off of him, thought he heard Scarface slither away.

"Charlie! Answer me, buddy! Where are you?"

Toss up: could Charlie not see because there was no light, or because he was unconscious, or because he was dead? Maybe he had his eyes closed? Answer: it didn't matter. He tried to call out. What emerged was closer to a groan than a shout.

"Charlie? Don! Over here! I found him!"

It was Colby's voice. But Colby was dead, wasn't he? Hadn't Charlie just talked to poor, dead Colby?

"He's alive! Don, he's alive! He's breathing!"

_But you're not, Colby. You're dead. I saw you die in a hail of bullets_. Crazy. Charlie had been alone in the dark for days, and he had gone crazy, just as he'd always suspected that he would. Genius was close to madness, right? Charlie was now irrevocably, certifiably insane. If he opened his eyes, what would he see? Visions of fluffy white clouds? Maybe nasty red places decorated with molten lava?

"It's okay, buddy. We're gonna get you out of here. Just hang on."

Colby's hands felt undeniably solid, certainly nothing like that of a ghost. _Do you really know what a ghost feels like? There's no proof that ghosts actually exist._

"Charlie, can you hear me? Open your eyes, buddy. Don, he's trapped underneath this boulder. We're gonna need all the help we can get. It's a big one."

Even with his eyes closed, Charlie could see the red behind his eyelids that meant that there were photons bouncing around his immediate vicinity. _Okay, this is getting more and more real. And I hurt. If I hurt_, Charlie reasoned, _I must be alive. Which means…_

"Colby?" he croaked.

"Charlie?" Colby stopped tugging futilely at the boulder and came around to peer into Charlie's face. The flashlight cast shadows over his face, darkening his eyes and throwing a fuzzy image against the far wall. _That's okay. I'm not interested in shadows at the moment, thanks._

_Cough. Wince_. "You're alive?" he asked.

Colby stared. "You're asking me that?" Understanding dawned. "My car. Yeah, my car is officially DOA, but I survived. I'd like to say quick reflexes, but I don't think your friends cared about killing me. Otherwise, I really would be dead."

Don's voice floated out, sharp and anxious. "Colby? Where are you?"

"Over here," Colby called. "Don, he's awake. He's okay. You are okay, right, buddy?" he asked anxiously. "Don's been scared stiff. He's been ready to shoot anybody gets in his way, guy."

Charlie hurt. He was tied up, his legs were trapped underneath a boulder, and he'd just survived an explosion that collapsed a mine and killed a bunch of terrorists.

"Yeah," said Charlie. "I'm okay."


	11. Cipher 11

"No," Don said with finality, crossing his arms, standing squarely in front of the door to his brother's hospital room. An orderly pushed an empty stretcher down the hall, a sheaf of papers dumped haphazardly on the white sheets. "My people stay."

"Agent Eppes," Rob Derrick tried again, "I'm offering the services of two highly trained bodyguards—"

"The NSA got Charlie into this mess in the first place," Don interrupted. "_You_ hired him all those years ago to develop the cipher and put him in touch with the murder victim. _My_ department bailed him out of this mess. With no help from you, I might add. Have your people decoded the message yet?" he put in snidely.

"Your brother's work is classified—"

"—and damn tough to crack." That gave Don satisfaction to say. "So without my brother, you're up a creek. In fact, the FBI is the one who ended up with the deciphered message and found the uranium. You should be thanking us for pulling your fat out of the fire."

Derrick tried again. "We need to debrief him. We need up-to-date information—"

Don didn't budge. "He needs to rest. I helped carry him out of the rubble, Derrick, rubble that he pulled down on himself to stop the terrorists. I called the Atomic Energy people to recover the uranium that he located. My team and I apprehended the terrorists who abducted him, threatening to use that uranium on the rest of us in this country. After all of that, he gets to rest. Without being pestered by two interrogaters posing as bodyguards. The only people pestering him will be the doctors and nurses in this hospital."

"National Security—"

"—doesn't apply," Don told him. "The uranium is safe in our custody. The country is safe. Debriefing can wait."

"My men—"

"Assign 'em to either end of the hallway," Don suggested, "if they need to feel needed. The personnel around here are really good about wearing their ID badges. They can question anyone without a badge."

Derrick sighed. "Special Agent Eppes—"

"What?"

The shrug indicated that Derrick had given up. "Can I at least say hello to Charlie? I haven't seen him face to face in three years."

Well, that was a new one. Don didn't know what to say. He blinked. "Uh…"

"Thanks." Derrick pushed by him, walking into the hospital room. "Hi, Charlie," he started to say.

"Sh!"

Charlie didn't _need_ bodyguards, either of the FBI or the NSA persuasion. He had his own cadre of highly personalized defenders. All three of them looked up as Derrick entered the room, and three glares almost drove the man back out.

"He's sleeping," Alan Eppes admonished Derrick. He wagged a dangerous finger at the man. "Have some courtesy."

Larry Fleinhardt, his arm in a sling, favored Rob Derrick with a searing glance that would turn a glacier into super-heated steam in a nanosecond. "You, sir, seem to have a predilection for turning up a day late and a dollar short, still expecting to be compensated for your efforts. Charles was quite right about you."

Even Amita Ramajuan, the mildest of them, told him, "If you're looking for the rest of the code, don't bother. I'm not working on it until Charlie wakes up. And maybe not then." She turned to Don. "Not him, Don. The other guy was taller, lighter hair."

"Thanks, Amita. That helps."

Now it was Derrick's turn to blink. "Agent Eppes? Am I missing something?" _Something that you didn't share with me, after all our heart to heart talks?_

Don kept his voice down in deference to the sleeping man in the bed. "Dr. Ramajuan was approached by someone, and then found that her computer work had been wiped. That work was assisting Charlie. Have a clue who did it?"

"You thought that I—?" Derrick did a nice job of expressing hurt bewilderment, Don decided. He must have practiced in front of a mirror.

"It was a possibility," he replied evenly. "This is, after all, national security."

"And now I'm cleared. That's nice to know." _Me, with my security clearance a lot higher than yours, Eppes._

"And now you're cleared of interfering with an FBI investigation. There are still some loose ends," Don said, working hard at keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. _As in, it wouldn't be the first time my government has chosen to commit a crime in the interests of security._

"Elaborate?"

"I still don't have a suspect for the murder of Ned Ames," Don told him. _Remember him? Your field intelligence agent? The guy who started this mess?_ "Someone threatened, however obliquely, Dr. Ramajuan and damaged her work. Her _national security work_, authorized by the FBI," he pushed. It was stretching the truth but he was banking that Derrick wouldn't notice. That man, Don decided, was used to stretching truth until it screamed for mercy. "And, finally, I've got two missing terrorists. I have evidence that this particular cell contained four members, only two of whom are in custody. There's the one that we apprehended outside of the collapsed mine, and the other that we nabbed outside my father's house." _Actually Charlie's, but I'm not really worried about semantics at the moment_.

"Those other two are buried beneath the rubble in the mine," Derrick said. "Isn't that what I was told? That the terrorists are presumed to be my agent's murderers?"

_Aha!_ "I don't know who told you anything, Mr. Derrick," Don said, "but I haven't released that information to anyone beyond my team and my supervisor. Care to explain how you came by it?"

"I have my sources—"

"I'm well aware of that, Mr. Derrick, and you're coming dangerously close to admitting to spying on the FBI. We're supposed to be on the same side. I repeat," Don said, eye glittering, "how did you come by that information?"

Derrick gestured at the three civilians, all seated and watching the tableau closely. The only person not listening was Charlie, his breathing coming easily under the influence of narcotics. "Should we be having this discussion here?"

"Frankly, I find this all quite fascinating," was Dr. Fleinhardt's opinion. "With a mystery this complex, it gives me hope that Unified Field Theory will be a mere trifle in comparison."

Larry's earlier glare to Derrick was returned, with interest. "Well?" Derrick put to Don.

For his part, Don was enjoying Derrick's discomfort. It almost—but not quite—made up for the past couple of days. He wrestled a grin into submission. "I believe that you'll find that all three of these civilians know as much as any of us about this case. Not only that: I've found, through experience, that tapping into their various areas of expertise leads to quicker and more satisfactory case closures. Consultants can be _so_ useful," he added. "Especially scientifically-trained observers as consultants. They observe a great deal."

"That sounds like you are leading up to something, Agent Eppes." Derrick's voice held its own level of danger.

"I am, Director Derrick. Would you like to hear what Dr. Ramajuan observed?"

"I don't appear to have much choice."

"No one's forcing you to stay," Alan Eppes pointed out, earning himself his own return glare from Charlie's former employer.

_Gee, another excellent observation_. Don couldn't have done better if he'd handed the civilian trio a bunch of scripts to follow. They were needling the NSA man just by being there, and the comments they were offering only put the icing on the cake. He pulled out a photo of a small, round electronic object and handed it to Derrick.

"Recognize this?"

Derrick did. "A listening device, probably a DLS 43-R, maybe a later model, maybe the –S or –T. Something from one of our vice president's many military company connections. Where did you find it?"

"Look like the 'S' model," Don confirmed. "Amita?"

"I found it plugged into my laptop," Amita said, still annoyed and not afraid to show it. "Someone tried to hide it on the back, hooked onto one of the USB links."

"As soon as we found that the data from her laptop had been erased, I had the whole thing examined by our Forensics tech people," Don said. "Clever little toy. Not only does it transmit the contents of the files, but it erases them afterward as well. Works really well on wireless devices. Sneaky little things, aren't they?"

"Are you accusing me of planting that on her computer?" Derrick asked coldly.

"Not at all," Don returned. "In fact, you were a long shot, a doubt that Dr. Ramajuan just confirmed by telling us that you weren't the person who visited her, impersonating an FBI agent. Impersonation of any Federal agent, as you are well aware, is a crime; even by a member of a different department. But it did clue us in that there was someone out there wanting help in figuring out what Ned Ames' message said, someone who had neither access to the key nor access to Charlie. I never did seriously consider the NSA as the culprits."

"Thank you for that, Agent Eppes."

Don ignored the return sarcasm. "The NSA already has code experts who have had extensive access to Charlie's work. You didn't need Amita's help, especially when you consider that her area of expertise doesn't include cryptography. She's very good, and she knows how Charlie thinks, but your own people were already ahead of her. They've been decrypting Ned Ames' work for years.

"So where am I going with this? I'm still looking for someone who needs to decode the message. Can't be the terrorists; they already had Charlie." Don tried to suppress the shiver at how close it had been, and he carefully avoided looking at the still figure in the hospital bed. "Who else is involved with this case?"

Derrick wasn't stupid. "CIA."

"Exactly. What can you tell me about this Mr. Tanner, Director Derrick?"

"He's a spook."

"I'd kind of figured that," Don told him. "Care to be more specific?"

Derrick sighed. "He's one of the best in the business. No one—and we think that may include his bosses—can keep track of him. He's turned in some of the most remarkable work in the past decade, but he's also one of the most unreliable people. When he's on, I can honestly say that he's single-handedly saved this country from possibly two or more disasters rivaling 9/11. But in between?" He sighed again. "Let's just say that I am exceedingly grateful that I am not his handler. I already have an ulcer from trying to keep track of my own people." A third sigh, followed by a frown. "Do you suspect him of murdering Ned Ames, Agent Eppes? That's a serious accusation."

"It's not an accusation yet," Don told him. "At this moment, he's simply a loose end. Which is about to get a little tighter," he added, listening to his cell phone buzz.

His father frowned. "Isn't that thing supposed to be turned off when you're in a hospital?"

"I got a special dispensation from the powers that be. Seems they're a little worried about terrorists coming in and shooting up the place while one of their previous victims is a patient here. They can't wait until we take him home. They're pressuring the docs more than the insurance companies to get him out of here." He flipped open his cell. "Eppes. Yes, David? Got it; good to know. Yes, your timing is impeccable, as always." He turned to Derrick.

Derrick's patience was rapidly running out. "Well?"

"I was wrong." Don didn't looked displeased at the revelation. "Well, not completely wrong. It wasn't the 'S' model. It was the 'S-II' model."

"Never heard of it." Derrick's patience was now gone. "Agent Eppes—"

"The 'S-II' model is an upgrade to the 'S'". Don didn't really need to explain that part. "Instead of sending a signal to its operator, it sends a signal to _two_ operators. Not necessarily with the first operator's knowledge or consent." He folded his arms. "Apparently the CIA is spending a little more money on technological marvels than the NSA." Don sat down, very comfortable not in the chair but with his knowledge. "Let me put forth a little hypothesis, Director Derrick."

"That's redundant," Larry put in. "'Hypo-' means 'little' or 'small' in Greek."

Don ignored the physicist. "The NSA and the CIA are in this together. It doesn't matter who contacted who—"

"—whom," his father muttered.

_Consultants!_

"—whom," Don continued, not quite daring to glare at his father, "but the bottom line is that Tanner placed the bug on Amita's computer to not only slow us down but to keep track of everything that we knew. Am I right?"

Derrick glared. "Yes. Tracking the illegal transportation of uranium, especially for potential terrorist use, was too important to leave in anyone else's hands. We had to find it, after Ned disappeared. _Especially_ after he turned up dead. We had to assume that the original terrorists found him, maybe even figured out where the uranium had been hidden. I don't trust Tanner, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for intelligence. I told him where to place the tap, who was working the code along with Charlie."

"I hardly think the FBI can be considered 'anyone,'" Don said mildly, his tone masking his anger. "Clear something up for me? Who planted the second 'S-II'? You or Tanner?"

Derrick's face turned a pasty shade of white. "You found that one, too?"

"As I said, Director Derrick: the information about the terrorists in the mine was released only to my team and my area director. After discovering the tap on Amita's computer, we went looking a little closer to home. Yes, we found the second bug." _Got you. Time to squeeze_. "There's been enough inter-agency bickering, Mr. Derrick. You can either give me the whole story, or my department can file a rock solid complaint against your department with the evidence in our hands. Your choice."

"I—" Derrick didn't know what to say. He rallied. "Complaints can be swept under the rug. It all depends on whose congressional committee has more power."

"True. But there's one more thing to consider: Charlie didn't finish decoding the message that Ned Ames sent. There's more to it."

"What do you mean?" Derrick was getting less and less happy over the revelations.

"He means—" Charlie's voice dissolved into a series of painful coughs. The room turned to the man, all wanting to help. Don jumped to his feet, Amita close behind.

His father got there first, holding a glass of water with a straw. "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough." Charlie lay back against the pillow, suppressing another cough. It hurt! "Don's right, Rob. Tanner's been using you. He's been using everyone."

"Explain."

But Charlie shook his head, wincing. "No, Rob. Not this time. You've been doing your share of using people as well. You used _me_."

"You're an NSA consultant—"

"_Was_, Rob. Was. I may still come back, but right _now_ I'm working for the FBI. Another government agency," he rode over Derrick's objections, "and, right now, in a better position to resolve this. Don," and Charlie turned to his brother. "Get me the laptop that I left in the terrorists' place." His voice faltered slightly over the description.

"It's in Forensics. They're checking it out."

"I hope they didn't screw up any of my work," Charlie muttered. He stared into space, trying not to let the narcotics take hold again. "There's a message that I need to finish decoding."


	12. Cipher 12

The old mine entrance looked less desolate with two FBI agents milling around, trying to keep out of the sun. A camper had been pulled up a few feet away from the entrance, the power on and functioning at top capacity to keep the air-conditioner inside going. Both of the agents tried hard to think up an excuse to go inside even for a moment to cool off. It rarely worked; the barrel outside with melting ice had several cases of water and soda for the purpose of agent hydration.

Yellow 'keep out' tape had been posted across the entrance to the mine, and the FBI agents were there to make sure that those instructions were carried out to the letter. The Atomic Energy people had been notified and were even now making their way to the site to recover the uranium. The fact that the material had had its origin in another country was unimportant. It was uranium, and it was radioactive, and it could go boom. The AE people were welcome to it. In fact, the FBI was willing to turn it over as quickly as possible, to get out of the hot desert sun even more than the remote danger of radioactivity leaking out from behind the lead container that the uranium had been stored in by the terrorists.

_And here they come now_. The FBI agents spotted a large truck rumbling down the highway, one man jumping out of the cab to make certain that the huge wheels wouldn't get bogged down in the soft sand across the mile or so to the mine entrance. They were in luck; there were enough rocks to support the weight. Some of the tires might not be much good afterward, but that was why the truck had multiple wheels. That, and a few spares in the back, should get them through to complete the job of hazardous material containment.

The man who jumped out from behind the wheel of the truck was a gum-chewing, flaming red head of a man. His average build belied the muscles underneath the heavy plaid shirt that he wore. The shirt was hot for the desert but once away from the site and driving through the mountains the truck driver would be happy for it. He proffered a sheaf of papers on a clipboard to the agents guarding the mine and wiped his sweat-laden forehead against his plaid sleeve. "You the FBI guys?" he asked, as if the pair didn't have 'FBI' plastered in yellow across their vests. "You got a pick up for us?"

"That's right." One of the agents accepted the clipboard, barely glancing over it as he scrawled his name across the bottom. "You're welcome to this stuff. Scary shit."

"Yeah. Makes you glow in the dark," his partner chimed in. "Give me a firefight any day."

The truck driver shrugged. "Not that bad, if you know what you're doing." He waved at the pair of workers in the cab of the van. "Okay, we got it. Let's haul this stuff out." He turned back to the FBI agents. "The uranium still inside the mine?"

"Yeah. We left it where we found it. It was booby-trapped."

That rocked the truck driver back a moment. "They said that the bomb was already exploded."

"Yeah, it was. But who knows how many bombs are in there? We're working with some seriously crazy dudes."

The truck driver snorted. It had a curiously unconvinced air about it. "Who'd be nuts enough to waste the effort on a second bomb?" He waved again at his men. "C'mon. Let's go haul some scary shit out of this mine and save the FBI agents from worrying about their kids growing up with three eyes."

"All yours." The FBI agents ripped down the yellow barrier tape, unpadlocking the rusty door so that the men from the Atomic Energy department could enter. The three truck workers disappeared into the dark, carrying the lanterns that they'd brought with them as well as a portable unit which, presumably, held a Geiger counter. "We'll be back before you know it," one called back over his shoulder.

One FBI agent remained to watch the now open entrance to the mine, listening to the receding footsteps as the AE people walked deeper into the mine, stepping over the rubble left by the bomb. The other opened the door to the camper and climbed the steps to get into the air-conditioned interior. He breathed deeply, appreciating the break from the heat.

One of the camper's inhabitants looked up and grinned. "Nice acting, David. Don't go looking for a Hollywood agent; I still need you here."

"Thanks. That him?"

Don lifted his shoulders. "Could be. Right size, right height. Looks all different, though. That red hair keeps distracting me. Megan?"

"Me, too," she admitted. "If it's a disguise, it's a good one."

"It's him," the third occupant said, no trace of doubt. Dark curls framed his face, the light from the computer screen reflecting into his eyes. He bent over the keyboard. "If it were really people from Atomic Energy, they'd be calling for the bomb squad, right?" For Charlie, it was logic. The hypothesis fit the facts.

"Right." Don grinned, a predator's expression. "But it still might not be him. I'd rather catch him with dirty hands at the scene of the crime." He leaned over his brother's shoulder, peering at the computer screen, careful not to put any weight onto the mathematician. "How're you coming with this? You gonna be able to come with the answer before he gets all the way inside?"

"How should I know?" Charlie responded irritably, concentrating on his work. "Leave me alone. Get me the headphones so I don't have to listen to you."

His brother looked awful, Don decided, but it was all cosmetic. The bruises would fade. The rib would heal. Even the nightmares—Don had spent an uncomfortable night in a hospital chair for just that reason, sending his father home—would vanish with time. Still, Don was proud of his brother. Not that he'd tell him so. _There were just some things that you didn't tell your little brother, no matter how old you were and how genius he was_, Don mused. No, Don was proud of the way that Charlie had insisted on coming here, back to the site where he'd almost lost his life.

Of course, this was a very different circumstance. This time, there were no terrorists dragging him into the dark tunnels, never expecting to come back out. This time, Charlie was surrounded by trained FBI agents, drawing the suspects into a trap. A trap that Charlie was helping to set up. For Charlie, this was payback.

"They're coming into range." Megan, her own set of headphones now down around her neck, flipped the switch that would allow the conversation inside the mine to filter into the camper. "The microphones around the uranium have been activated."

The voices from the mine were filled with static. "You find it?"

"Not yet—wait, here it is. Bring that light over here."

"Is it Ned's or Mo's?"

"Can't tell."

"You'd better be able to tell. One, I can work with. The other'll blow us right out of this mine. Who the hell thought that Ned Ames would be stupid enough to blow up his own code key? Without that code, we have no diagram of the second bomb that he put in here."

"Back off. Give me time. I can do this."

"You'd better. There's a hell of a lot of money riding on this."

"Then shut up. You're making me nervous."

Back in the camper, Don looked at both David and Megan. "They're making _me_ nervous. How much firepower was in that second bomb?"

David shook his head. "No way to tell, not with the time we had to look at it. Doesn't sound like they're going to be able to do this, Don. How 'bout I tell Colby to back away from the entrance?"

"I'm liking that idea," Don admitted. "Megan?"

The woman had returned to listening to the suspects deep in the mine. "They're trying," she said. "They're scared. Doesn't sound like they know how to disarm the second bomb."

"And the cave-in isn't helping." Don wasn't certain which scenario he wanted to have played out: the suspects disarm the bomb and emerge to be arrested, or the bomb explode and take the suspects with them. The second possibility would certainly save the taxpayers the cost of a trial but ran the distinct chance that the lead lining to the uranium would crack and let a lot of ugly radiation out into the general public arena. An arena that included four FBI agents and a grumpy consultant.

Didn't matter. The only way to recover the uranium was to disarm the bomb one way or another. One way was to see if the suspects knew how to do it, a route that was looking less and less likely. The other way to disarm the bomb was to decipher the instructions.

And Charlie was working on that right now.

Megan held up her hand for attention, opening up the channel again so that all could hear the conversation inside:

"What was that?"

"Rocks shifting. It happens after an explosion. We need to finish up here and get out."

"I don't know. This doesn't look good."

Cursing. "We can't leave without the uranium. What are they going to think, outside?"

"They're gonna think that we need a bomb squad."

"By that time, the real AE people will be here. You've got two minutes to tell me that you can disarm that bomb. And it better be the right answer."

Snort. "I don't care whether it's the right answer or not. I can't do it. Not in two minutes, not in two days. This thing has got blind alleys and switches that it would take hours to trace. Gotta cut our losses and run. Better alive and broke than rich and dead."

Voice from the third man. "Guys, we have a problem! The Geiger counter just started chattering!"

"What? The lead lining was supposed to be—"

"Well, it's not! The first bomb must have cracked it! These rocks in here are shifting!"

"Pack it up." There was resignation but no hesitancy. "We write it off. We'll tell the FBI guys that we have to go call in our own Bomb Squad and that we're going to wait in some place air-conditioned." Pause. "Don't mention the Geiger counter. We may need that to keep 'em busy, later."

"Think they'll buy it?"

"Three of us, two of them. Don't worry about it. Just get to the truck where we have the rifles. Don't let them stop you. Got it?"

Inside the camper Don went into nervous action. "Colby? Tell me you rigged a little Geiger counter surprise for our friends, just to hurry them along."

"Wish I could, boss. Maybe their Geiger counter is screwy. There wasn't any radiation on the machine that I brought out with us just an hour ago. I'll haul ours out and check again."

"Make it fast," Don warned. "It's going down as we speak. Grab your gear, everyone. Charlie? Charlie!" He shook his brother's shoulder.

"Ow! What?" The headphones slid off, and Charlie looked up in annoyance.

"Down on the floor, buddy. There are going to be bullets flying in about two minutes."

"Oh." Charlie looked half-unhappy and half-worried. "The floor."

"Yeah." Don took him under the shoulder—the good one—and helped his brother ease himself down to the floor, taking the laptop with him. But Don handed Charlie a flak jacket. "Put this on. Just in case a ricochet comes through the window."

"Okay." Not _half_-unhappy any more. _Completely_ miserable. But Charlie slipped the jacket on.

He started to replace the headphones that allowed him to concentrate, but Don stopped him. "When the bullets start flying, I want you flat," Don warned. "I don't care how close you are to a solution. _Flat_. Hear me?"

Charlie nodded. Resigned. Scared. "Be careful, Don."

"Hey, that's my middle name."

"Is not."

But Don was already out of the camper, following the rest of his team.

The four FBI agents took positions around the mine entrance, carefully taking advantage of the natural protection in the form of boulders. Colby put himself behind the truck. And they waited.

The redhead was the first out of the mine. He glanced around, carefully casual, and knew instantly what was going on. The FBI guards had disappeared. That was the only clue that he needed.

"FBI!" Don yelled. "Come out with your hands in the air!"

There may have been rifles in the truck, but the trio inside the mine weren't empty handed. Don ducked back; a bullet from a handgun chipped a bright and shiny new divot in the boulder he was hunched behind. The three AE people, clearly revealed as the fakes that they were, darted back inside the mine. Don peered around his boulder, trying to spot them.

"We've got you penned up," he shouted at them. "Don't be stupid! We can keep you there until you rot!"

The redhead pulled off the wig, revealing medium brown hair beneath. It was too hot to keep it on any longer. _Yup, it was Tanner_. Don felt no sense of satisfaction at being right.

"You can't keep us in here," Tanner yelled back. "You're in as much danger as we are. The uranium is leaking like a sieve."

Don went for his radio, clipped to his shoulder. "Colby? Tell me that you rigged that up as a treat for our suspects, to hurry them along."

"Sorry, boss. Wish I could. I think it's the real thing. My Geiger counter just started hollerin', too."

"Then we're dealing with a hot zone. Damn." That was more than a little scary, and not something that Don had planned on. The uranium was supposed to stay nice and quiet behind its lead lining, not leaking radiation into the surrounding rocks and men. "We're going to have to move fast, people, if we don't want this to blow up in our faces, no pun intended. Megan, the rest of us will open fire. Get to the camper, call the AE people and warn them. Tell them that the scene is now out of control. Find out if they have anyone who can take down a bomb. Gentlemen, on the count of three. One, two—"

No one waited for three. Don, David, and Colby threw lead as fast as they could, forcing the trio of suspects back behind the mine entrance. Megan scuttled to the camper, opening the door and throwing herself inside, dragging the door shut behind her.

"Megan?"

"Not now, Charlie." Megan got on the long range radio.

She had the answer for Don in moments. "Don, the AE people are five minutes from here. I have them waiting away from the scene, safe. They're unarmed, and they don't have anyone with expertise in conventional bombs. And they say it will take several hours to get someone out here. They're putting the call in to their people right now."

"Dammit." Don couldn't spare the time for any really effective swearing. The radiation was just beginning, and would take time to build up to a level where it would affect civilization just a few miles away, but to prevent that from happening Don and his team would have to shut the source down _now_. And to get to that source, they needed Tanner and his cronies out of the way.

Three suspects versus an entire metropolis.

_This is why they pay you the big bucks, Eppes. To make these kinds of decisions._

_Hah. I don't get paid squat._

"Tanner!" he yelled. "Let's deal."

"We're walking out of here, Eppes. Step away from the truck. We'll leave, and you can have the uranium."

"You can walk out of here, but you keep walking. Throw out your weapons. And no truck. That stays."

"With the deposit I made on it? No way."

"You can walk out of the desert, or you can get carried in lead-lined body bags. You're a lot closer to the uranium than we are."

"Didn't take that into your calculations, did you, Eppes? Not so smart."

"Neither did you," Don called back. "What'll it be, Tanner? We won't stop you walking away, but the truck is ours. How fast can you run in the desert?"

"Fast enough that you won't catch me, Eppes. We're coming out. With our guns. One shot, and we're back in the mine and you won't get us out for days. The people of Los Angeles won't be very happy with that outcome, Eppes."

"Do it slow," Don warned. He tapped his radio. "Hold your fire, people. Priority one: we need them out of the way. We'll lose them, but we'll have a clear way into the mine."

"I can drop 'em, Don." Colby didn't want to let the suspects get away.

"And then the survivors go back inside, and we'll never flush them out. Not before the entire L.A. basin goes radioactive. Sorry, Colby. Tanner wins this round. Hold your fire. Here they come."

The trio slowly emerged, handguns ready, bunched up with the wall of the mine at their backs.

"No shots, Eppes," Tanner warned again. His head glistened with the hair gel in the sun, gel that he'd used to slick his own hair down before applying the red wig. Don didn't envy him; Tanner's head had to have been baking.

"Stay away from the camper," Don told them in return, nervously watching as the suspects tried to edge in that direction. The camper was filled with gas. It wouldn't be fast, but it would be faster than the truck, and it would contain a hostage or two. He spoke into his radio. "Megan, convince them that they don't want _our_ transportation."

Megan heard him. The door eased open, and a long barrel pushed its way out.

The trio backed off. "We can still shoot," Tanner said.

"I know. We're compromising, Tanner. We get the mine, and you get to escape. Neither of us is happy, so hurry it up."

The suspects did, breaking into a run less than one hundred yards away from the mine. Within three minutes they were out of range entirely.

"You let them go," Colby grouched.

"Didn't hear a better idea, Colby."

"I know, boss. But it grates." Colby pursed his lips. "The bomb?"

Don was equally unhappy. "I'll have to defuse it." He started to hand his gun over to David, removing his flak jacket.

Colby disagreed. "Boss, I've got more experience with bombs than you. I'll—"

"Colby, you heard them. This thing has more wires and dead ends than anything they'd ever seen." Don carefully didn't say what they were all thinking: that this was a long shot, and that there was a better than even chance that the only way to disable this bomb was for some fool to trigger it and go up with the explosive.

"Don?"

Don looked up. Charlie had come to the door of the camper. "Charlie? Tell me that you…"

"I decoded it."

"The bomb?"

Charlie nodded. "And the instructions on how to disarm it."

* * *

Radiation suits, Don decided, were even more uncomfortable than flak jackets. But Don was really grateful to be wearing one at the moment. 

"Don? Can you hear me?" It was Colby on the other end.

"Okay, Colby. Talk me through this. Nice and slow and, above all, be right."

"I should be in there, boss."

"We already talked about this, Colby. You understand the diagram; I don't. Tell me what to do."

Sigh. "Set up your field, Don. Lots of light. Just look the thing over, and tell me what you see."

"Lots of wires, Colby. And a little black box that they go into."

"Don't touch the box, not until I tell you."

"Let me guess: that's where the business part of the bomb is."

"You got it, Don."

It seemed like he worked for hours but later Megan would tell him that it was only twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of sweating into a hot radiation suit, twenty minutes of holding his breath each time a wire was snipped through. Twenty minutes of gently lifting the black box into the air, opening his eyes when it didn't erupt in his hands, twenty minutes of walking out and climbing over the boulders strewn across the floor of the mine where the previous explosion had tossed them. Twenty minutes of begging the mine to allow the second Eppes brother to emerge alive just as the first one did. Preferably in better condition than the first.

Don finally put the bomb down nearly half a mile farther into the desert, far enough away so that the explosion wouldn't do more than shake up the jackrabbits. Then he backed away. An AE man ran a Geiger counter in his vicinity. "Hot, but interior is safe. Take off the suit; a radiation shower is in our van."

"Thanks, but I've got a bomb to dispose of first." His hands were shaking.

* * *

David grabbed his arm. "You did it, Don. The bomb is out; AE is already climbing all over the uranium, putting it into a better container. You can relax." He grinned. "I don't have to shoot you in the back anymore." 

"Gee, thanks." Don had forgotten that part of this mess. "I really appreciate it."

"Should we call in the bomb squad for that thing?" David indicated the black box sitting alone in the desert, looking remarkably innocuous for such a dangerous piece of equipment.

Don considered, then shook his head. "Blow it, David. Before it kills anyone."

David nodded, tried to hand Don the rifle. "Here. You earned it."

Don handed it back. "The way I'm shaking?" He laughed, the sound as wiped as he felt. The radiation shower, tepid against the lead-lined suit, hadn't done anything to wash away his nerves and his hands were still trembling from the left-over adrenalin. "I don't think I could hit the broad side of that mine. You do it."

* * *

_Epilogue:_

"So you let him get away."

Two days hadn't improved his brother's appearance, Don decided. If anything, Charlie looked worse with the bruises doing the rainbow thing. _Good thing it's a long weekend_, Don thought. _Hate to be the professor trying to lecture looking like that_. Don shrugged. "Stuff happens," he said. "It's not like I had much choice."

It was lasagna tonight, and their father was cooking. Charlie had been taking it easy, lounging around the house instead of his usual peripatetic working in the garage. Don knew that because he himself had been a more frequent guest for the last two days. He couldn't get the image of Charlie out of his head, the image where Charlie was pinned beneath a boulder in the mine, waiting for the ceiling to finish falling in on him, coughing and babbling about Colby not being dead…

"What if I hadn't been able to decode the rest of the message in time?" Charlie demanded. "You couldn't have detonated the bomb inside the mine. The mine would have collapsed, and the radiation would have been leaking for days trying to dig it out."

"Tanner didn't know how to defuse the bomb either," Don pointed out. "No better option, Charlie."

"But you let him get away!"

"Shit happens." Don felt as tired as when he'd set the bomb down in the desert. "We'll probably never hear from him again. Guy like him, he'll retire and hide somewhere with an early retirement plan."

"That's what Rob Derrick said." Charlie looked down for a moment, then peered sideways at his brother. "He asked me if I thought you might go work for him."

"For the NSA?" Don raised his eyebrows. "You gotta be kidding, right?"

"Yeah. Said something about wanting more Eppes-style fireworks." Charlie watched his brother very closely. "Sounds like you impressed him, brother. Rob Derrick isn't easy to impress."

"Yeah, well…" Don stretched, put his arms behind his head, more to buy himself time than to ease his muscles. "Don't think so, buddy. Those twists and turns are beyond me. Give me a straight-forward crime any day." He levered himself upright, held out his hand to his brother. "C'mon. Let's go impress some lasagna."


End file.
